Do you associate music with characters?

Eelektross

Basically, this thread is about that moment when you listen to a song and you think "holy shit this reminds me of X character!"

I associate long instrumental pieces characterized by multiple guitar licks with Dr. Eggman. This is probably because of Sonic CD.

MillerCross

Most of the time they are not lyric related but simply because of shuffle and such, like associating Soul Survivor with Dream of the Endless.

For me that is

Zennistrad

Hell yes. It certainly helps that I play a lot of video games, those tend to have a lot of character themes.

Nyktos

All the damn time. As often with characters I made up as with ones from stuff, too.

Pirka

More often than not, a song will remind me of at least one character or story, either an existing one or one my imagination crapped up.
The oddest thing is when songs from things that...actually have characters assosciated with them (i.e. songs from musicals, soundtracks, etc.) remind me of characters other than the ones they're supposed to be about.

dmboogie

The only time a song will really remind me of a character is when they have a leitmotif/stage theme or whatever. 

Lai

Most definitely.

All Nines

I don't tend to do this with characters, but I have at least two songs that I now mentally associate with Welcome to the N.H.K.

glennmagusharvey

Let's see...I associated the first movement of Chopin's E minor piano concerto with the character Lance from Voltron (especially his character in Voltron: the Third Dimension).  I also loosely associated two other pieces with two other Voltron characters (Schubert's Impromptu Op. 90 #3 with Allura and Villa-Lobos's "Festa no Sertão" with Pidge), but mostly as a consequence of this first association.

I associated a couple pieces with a girl I had a huge crush on (or, taking a step back, the feeling of limerence itself)--Liszt's "Reminiscences of Don Juan" (lololol irony) and Liszt's Dante Sonata.

One of the oddest things is that, in part because I have this association for the Dante Sonata (and in part because I haven't actually read any Dante), I have a unique personal interpretation of said piece which involves imagery that differs quite strongly from what I've heard was the intended imagery.  For example, the grand arrival of the second theme, in F# major, was (I hear) supposed to represent the wicked glory of Satan or something.  Instead, I take it to be a glorious portrayal of said girl, and the section preceding it is that girl flying--no, zooming up to the sky head first (think of what Samus looks like when doing a vertical Shinespark in Zero Mission).  The subdued return of the second theme a couple minutes later makes me imagine spending a sweltering Florida summer on the athletic fields of our high school beneath the sun sitting next to her.  Then a later appearance of that theme is associated the wind blowing through her hair to a late-afternoon/evening sun backdrop.

Yeah, that was a quite silly time, but it was worth it.

Less notable associations include thinking of a certain character or scene from a videogame or TV show that I happened to watch when I was learning a given piece.

More recently, I've had a few more assorted unintended associations, such as the Melocure song "Agapé" with Eureka Seven (and the characters Dominic and Anemone) (thanks to this really awesome AMV), some Pirates of the Caribbean themes with the animé Yukikaze (thanks to another really awesome AMV), the song "Sleepless Night" with Kiddy Grade (thanks also to a really awesome AMV), and the song "Heaven is a Place on Earth" with Magic Knight Rayearth (yet again thanks to a really awesome AMV).  There's a pattern here...

There's also my associating the German Sailor Moon theme song with a certain person I happened to meet at about the same time I first heard the song.  (It's a pretty cool theme, seriously.)  I associate the "Letter Song" by doriko and "Puzzle" by apple41 with the person who first showed them to me.

I've written a few simple character themes myself as well.

(Intentional associations, such as official character themes, don't really count toward my personal total, even though for the purpose of this thread I should make note that I also have these associations.)

 

I think my associations tend to be more oriented toward feelings, moods, concepts, and events, rather than individual characters, interestingly.

Zennistrad

I was thinking: if Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic were to turn evil, this would be her boss battle theme: