Not nursery rhymes or lullabies, what is the first real music you can remember hearing in your life?

I can remember vividly the music, time, and place. 1974, my dad was still in the Air Force and we were living in housing on Carswell AFB. I was two and a half years old and my dad bought the Jim Croce Greatest Hits Album "Photographs and Memories" that had just been released a year after Croce died in a plane crash. My dad plopped me down on an ottoman and put that record on and played it for hours while we listened and I held that album cover looking at that funny mustache in all of the pictures. Dad listened to that album over and over for weeks.

Somehow those songs were imprinted in my brain. I have never once purchased a Croce song or album and can go ten years without hearing one played on the radio but each time the lyrics and notes come to me without fail. I know every word and note of "Time in a Bottle", "Operator", and "Bad Bad Leroy Brown". Hearing those songs always brings my mind right back to that time and place when I heard them for the first time.

Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. My older sister had it in 8 track and I would listen to it before I fell asleep.

The Marines Hymn. My Dad was a Marine. Every weekday morning he'd walk down the hallway singing when it was time for us to get up.

My dad had a Best of Credence Clearwater Revival tape cassette. Think its the only album he ever owned. I loved Lookin' Out My Backdoor as a little kid and ask my dad to play it, rewind, play it again.

I either remember a poppy Beatles like hard days night, or a beach boys Barbra Ann.
Or Elvis hound dog. All seem to be buried there in the past.

The earliest I can remember is the Grease soundtrack. I have no memory of it, but according to my parents, I was obsessed with Elvira from The Oak Ridge Boys and would sing the chorus over and over again when I was 2-3 years old.

Honky Tonk Blues by Hank Williams on 8 Track cassette.

I listened to that song so many times as a toddler that I don't know if there is another song in my 50 years that has more spins.

Herb Albert and Tijuana Brass

I stared at that album cover for days..one handed.

Good thread. It would have been around 1973-74, and in no particular order I remember hearing these on any given week:

Johnny Cash
Herb Alpert
older Beatles
Johnny Horton
John Denver
Freddy Fender
that 40 Funky Hits collection of all kinds of songs

Also, since my folks grew up in Illinois, Dad was a huge Cardinals fan and would play the vinyl record of Jack Buck's call of the Cards winning the pennant in either 67 or 68.

I have memories of that same album. Not sure if it is the first music I can remember listening to but it's very close. My mom had that on 8 Track and would listen to it non-stop. I particularly remember listening to it while we drove back and forth from Ft Worth to Stephenville to see Grandma. I can remember sitting in the footwell of the front passenger seat and playing with Star Wars figures and listening to that album.

Also grew up with a steady diet of CCR, Willie and Waylon, Ray Price.

The first album I ever owned was KISS Destroyer which my Dad brought home for me from a flea market (8 Track). No idea what made him do that but to this day that is my favorite KISS album.

Probably something on the Smothers Brothers show or older brother had the Revolver album and use to pretend to be a Beatle and lip sync to it

"King of the Road" by Roger Miller. For some reason my mom drove that one into my head as a baby. As a toddler I remember a lot of Barry Manilow on the 8-track in the car.

I was always linked to this song in particular from the very first time I heard it. I had no idea why this song had such an impact until one day I was playing it when my mom came into the room. She proceeded to tell me that when I was in her belly, she had played music for me. They didn't have much growing up but one thing the place they were renting did have was a record player. One of those hand me down leftover records in the rental was this song. Apparently when they would play it she could feel me dancing in her belly so she played it for me often. I suppose that would qualify this song as the first song I ever remember hearing.

Another would be Moody Blues Knights in White Satin. I remember vividly listening to that song as a kid under a black night sky dotted with bright stars as we ambulated down the old country road in our wood paneled car on our way to our new home in College Station, Texas.

When I was 4... Raffi was the ***** I really can't remember the first "grown up" music I ever heard was. But I don't consider Raffi to be "nursery rhymes", though definitely for kids.

Either Ace of Bass or the early Garth Brooks

Doobie Brothers.

While I played with my "Magnetron" space LEGOs.

Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence album. My mom loved it.

First song I can remember is probably Sneaky Snake by Tom T. Hall.

First music I can remember seeking out on my own is probably Livin' On A Prayer by Bon Jovi.

Slippery When Wet was in my first Columbia House cd scam order.

Had to have been Jerry Lee Lewis' Great Balls of Fire or Buddy Holly's Peggy Sue.

Ricky Van Shelton's Wild Eyed Dream

My mom was the church organist. We had a piano and an organ in our house growing up. I was the youngest of 5 and everybody played something.

So it was either hymns, my sister played piano, my brother played trumpet, sister played the flute.

SOMEONE WAS ALWAYS PLAYING SOMETHING!

ETA: I vividly remember my oldest sister brought home Meet The Beatles album. I was probable 4 or 5

Did your daddy sing bass?

Kenny Rogers 'The Gambler' on 8 track in an old suburban with a 454.

Hard to say what I remember as being "first".

My dad had a great record collection and played lots of stuff. In The Hall Of The Mountain King, some Herb Alpert, Streisand, Neil Diamond, lots of classical stuff, jazz.

The Unsquare Dance? Maybe that?

Probably some church hymns. How Great Thou Art would be likely.

I had a Kermit the Frog record I played a lot. And a record with the Davy Crockett theme I played a lot.

And also have one vivid memory of being in an older cousin's car leaving a grocery store in the rain and hearing Uncle Albert by The Beatles.

Hmmm... probably "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel.

George McCrae's Rock Your Baby in my dad's '74 Olds Cutlass….

Iron Maiden blasting from my brother's room-

Dad was a fan of marching music. Would play albums from John Phillips Souza on the home stereo.
Late '50s probably. Plus the Longhorn band..

Video Killed the Radio Star

"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" - Wham!

The kid across the street from me had the cassette tape and used to blast it all the time on his stereo whenever he came outside to play with me, my brother, and the other neighborhood kids. This was like 1991 and I was in first or second grade or something, but that was the song I remember. Weirdly enough, that kid ended up doing some prison stints, so Wham! being his go-to was always kind of funny to me. He was cool dude though, criminal behavior aside.

Piano Man

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Piano Man

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Not the Star Wars soundtrack???

My parents were, surprisingly, not the least bit into Star Wars.