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 ~
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 ~
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?
