Quicksilver and Memory
I will confess that I read many of the pieces on Ageing here on Medium to calibrate myself. How well am I doing so far at 74. When it comes to memory, my failure to recall a name (person or film or song) is annoying, but the name usually does come to me eventually. And if I’m in a hurry, I can usually track it down with Google/IMDB/Wiki.
What’s most annoying is when you have a name but then lose it before you can use it in a conversation. That’s just cruel.
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All that is preface to a recent failure of my memory. In the mid to late ’60s San Francisco produced at least five semi-popular Rock bands. Most people could name the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Santana; many could name Big Brother (and the Holding Company) thanks to Janice Joplin. The fifth band was my favorite at the time, but even I have a hard time recalling its name: Quicksilver (Messenger Service).
(I’m sure much has been written — somewhere — about trends in band names. At that time bands often started off with stupidly long names that soon got truncated. Another example was Chicago Transit Authority, which quickly became just Chicago. And then there’s Creedence Clearwater Revival.)
Quicksilver had one outstanding song (Pride of Man) and a cover of Happy Trails that brought that tune into the Psychedelic Age. I’m sure I’m forgetting other songs since I haven’t listened to them since the ’60s. I should probably add that I’ve never listened to them when I wasn’t stoned, so you might keep that in mind if you have any interest in discovering them.
With any luck, writing this will help me remember the name in future. And that’s more likely than my succeeding in remembering the band name Procol Harum — which I’m told is a misspelling of a cat’s name.
