Friday, February 20, 2015

Flashback Friday - Music and Memories I

I’m back in the saddle again…

To get back into the blogging swing, I’m instituting a Music and Memories Flashback Friday

We are currently enjoying the 6th month free trial of Sirius radio and I’ve gallivanted all over the 80s and 90s with reckless abandon.  I see my life in music, as so often a song generates a memory that is seared into my brain. 


The Best of Times ~ Styx




My very first slow dance was to this song at a school dance in 7th grade. There was so much agonizing over whether he liked me or not, for the weeks preceding and the weeks that followed.  I wrote about it in my diary, about being lucky that I got to be on his team in gym class where he stood right next to me (!!!) 



Rock With You ~ Michael Jackson




This song takes me back to 6th grade, when we had this thing during the regular school schedule called “clubs.”  My friends and I took aerobics, which was just starting to take off as a fitness craze.  One of our teachers, Miss Wentzel, taught our aerobics club and this song was one of the songs we did a routine to.  I can still picture her in her Jane Fonda bodysuit and tights.  The other unforgettable song was Barry Manilow’s If You Like Pina Coladas.  At the tender age of 11, I never realized what the lyrics were saying.  Thirty-plus years later – wow.



Let’s Groove ~ Earth, Wind and Fire 




My first big concert was Earth, Wind and Fire – I knew my dad liked them and I finagled tickets to the concert for his birthday in November 1981 at the Spectrum in Philly.  We sat directly to the right of the stage, in the second level, with a great view.  My dad was jamming out in his seat, tapping his hands on his lap and really enjoying the show.  It was my first experience with the sensation of ringing in the ears, too.




Ghostbusters ~ Ray Parker Jr 



Ghostbusters, the movie, was released in theaters in the summer of 1984.  I know this because my dad and his wife took my friend Holly and I to Wildwood for a week, and she and I went to see it at the theater on the boardwalk on one of our last nights there, to kill boredom.  We’d met these 2 boys from Cherry Hill on the boardwalk earlier in the week, fell in love, spent the rest of the boys’ time there hanging out on the beach, and walking the boards at night.  They left a day or two before we did, and we were sullen and bored until we packed up to go home.  The boy and I kept in touch for several months after, through cards and letters where he told me he loved and missed me, but we never did see each other again.


Prince ~ Purple Rain Trailer








Because no walk down memory lane would be complete without the Purple One.  I could only share a trailer for the movie that transformed my teenaged self, since Prince controls the rights to share his music and videos on youtube and they just simply aren’t there (boo Prince – it’s time to give it up). I was knocked out by this man who stood no taller than me, and thus embarked on a lifelong one-sided relationship with him. When tour dates were announced, my stepdad (who had scalper connections) got me 9TH ROW tickets on the floor, which cost Holly and I $90 a piece (in 1984). The concert was amazing, and though it might have been a bit better had the 2 guys in front of us not been blowing cannabis at us all night – I swear that Prince and I made eye contact!  Thousands of silk flowers fell from the ceiling during I-don’t-remember-which-song (c’mon – it was 30 years ago!), which I stuffed into my pockets by the handfuls and later suspended from my bedroom ceiling. 


Purple Rain – and Prince – would have a much more profound impact on my life that I could never have imagined at the age of 15.  It was that concert and the t-shirt I bought there that would lead to a chance meeting with a boy in high school who just happened to be wearing the same shirt. And – if you’ve been reading my blog – you know the rest. So I have Prince to thank for orchestrating a relationship that time or circumstance could never break.  What a matchmaker.

Do any of these songs spark memories for you?