The Seeds A Faded Picture (1966)
Memories are fascinating constructs. And they are less reliable than you might think.
When an event is first experienced, it is encoded and stored in the brain through a process called consolidation. This process solidifies the memory. When a memory is recalled, it becomes both active and malleable. This reactivation allows the memory to be accessed and used, but it also makes it fragile: After a memory is reactivated, it needs to be consolidated again to be stored back in long-term memory. During this reconsolidation phase, the memory can be modified by new information or emotions.
Thus, our beliefs, expectations and knowledge at the time of remembering a past event can reshape how we will remember it in the future. Details may be altered, or certain aspects might be emphasized over others. Research has even found that memories can be updated with new information during recall. For example, people can be led to remember details that weren’t part of the original event through suggestive questioning or misinformation, which has been identified as a problem in legal contexts.
With private memories this is less of a problem. Yet, we can never be entirely sure that something that is remembered has actually happened. So, when Sky Saxon of American garage rock pioneers The Seeds sings, “I want to go back, when I was six years old, just lying in the grass, seeing all the clouds, building castles in the sky,” we should be heedful of the fact that this very memory could be made up. Saxon himself seems to be not quite sure about his reminiscence as the song in question is called “A Faded Picture”…
Anyway, the memories Saxon refers to—whether true or not—make the basis of a great ballad, which is a welcome change on The Seeds’ brilliant and otherwise pretty psychedelic album A Web of Sound.
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