I can think right on top of my head of two songs in particular, where I have some pretty clear memories of where I was and the time and place, even though they were songs I’d heard plenty of times before and plenty of times after, and they were the two songs, just as I was pulling into the parking lot for my high school graduation back in June of 1994. Sorry, 1995, goodness!
One was, “Mr. Jones” by Counting Crows, the other “Welcome To Paradise” by Green Day. And both of them, I think were on D.C. 101, one of the rock stations in the Washington D.C. area that was a little easier of the two main rock stations to pick up in the area based from where I was on the western side of the D.C. area. The other one was 99.1 HFS, and that was like, way over towards Annapolis, which maybe the translator was probably like somewhere in Rockville or Montgomery County or Prince George’s or something, but the point being was — anyway, 101 was easier to pick up so that was normally the rock station I listened to as I was driving in. And yeah, those particular songs, I remember from the playlist of graduation.
And that graduation speech itself was not necessarily anything earth-shattering. We didn’t have any viral moments, although admittedly those were a lot harder to create in the pre-internet era. The speaker had engagements on NPR at the time and maybe had written a book or two, and my dad actually remembers him more than I do, just for the fact that he could remember him clapping for every graduate, which he thought was, you know, a good thing that he did.