Isn’t it something how a certain song will come on and it brings you back to that moment in time when life was so different. Here I am, sitting listening to a childhood anthology and remembering a million different lifetimes ago.
Like the time I went to Biloxi, MS and saw Rick Springfield. It was the summer of 1999 and I was pregnant with my son. Rick sang the song, “Human Touch” and came off the tiny stage behind the bar and walked across tables, touching people in the audience. He then came by our table, stepped on the chair next to me and used my shoulder to steady himself to get on our table and walk across to get back on stage. At that moment, my then husband screeched like a girl and said, “OMG HE TOUCHED YOU!!” to which the gals at our table screamed. We cracked up so hard.
Or every time I hear “Funky White Boy” I think of my son; because as a little guy he loved that song so much and would have me play it over and over again.
Songs like “Tainted Love“, “Hurt so Good“, and “Abracadabra” that bring me back to that first summer as a teenager and going to Seaside Heights with my aunt and cousins. Or whenever I play the Metallica “Black” album, I instantly am back in uniform and zipping around SC.
I remember when Pink Floyd’s “Brick in the Wall” album came out and my BF and I babysat for her older sister and listened to it on her stereo. Or the times I hear Ozzy’s or Van Halen and drift back to my high school art class.
Just like 90’s country music brings me back to the Enlisted club in Iwakuni, Japan and Friday night dancing, Mongolian BBQ and good fun. It reminds this rock and roll soul that having a roommate from Texas is an asset and how she taught me the two step in our room and a friend of ours who wanted me to learn the song “Papa Loved Mama” by Garth Brooks. BTW, it’s one of my go to karaoke songs. LOL!
Let me tell you about Elvis. I remember when the King died and my mom set up our reel to reel player and recording a televised memorial to him. Oh, how she cried over the loss of this magic man. Or the times when my parents would turn that reel to reel on for the entire Saturday and we’d sing along, dance and just have a great time. How I love those oldies; but goodies.
My son put his phone through our car stereo last Saturday night and on his playlist was a song by Blonde that I hadn’t heard in 30 plus years. It was on her “Heart of Glass” album and not a “radio” song. I told him about how I loved that song, that it wasn’t a “hit” and the hours my friend and I spent listening to it on her cassette player.
Jo Dee Messina sings “Heaven was Needing a Hero” and it reminds me of my best friend’s death in September 2016. Or when I hear Chicago on the radio and I drift back to my high school boyfriend and how I thought we’d be married and in love forever. Ah, young love.
Sunday’s were the days back then, listening to Casey Kasem count down the top 40 and waiting for your favorite song to come on the air so you could record it on cassette and praying that the DJ wouldn’t speak through the beginning of the song. Those were the days. And yet, time marches on.
I’ve lived through the birth of rap, when it was fun and playful; before it was taken to a level where men disrespect women, the police and their own mothers. I still love the song “Jam On It” by Newcleus and “The Real Roxanne” by Roxanne. I’ve even shocked my son and his friends by rapping “The Real Roxanne” in front of them. I guess I can be impressive for an old lady. Ha, ha!
As I’ve made the metamorphosis of life, I see the variety of different musical stages I’ve gone through and how each phase has helped me grow, change and mature. I love it all. Classical, rock and roll, rap, oldies, country, metal, hard rock, reggae, soundtracks, musicals, I just love music.
Music has a way of touching the soul the way no other genre does. We are blessed with a lyrical time machine that can take us anywhere we want to go and I hope my obsession with music never ends.
If music be the food of love; then play on…..
❤
Irishgoddess 