This is my life: Six Songs
Like so many of the “personality inventories” that roam the
internet, this is one I saw in a magazine somewhere, I know not where, but it
intrigued me enough to sit down and think about mine. Music has been a part of
my life always – before I knew what it was, before I knew my own affinity for
it, music and songs were there.
“You Light Up My Life” Debbie Boone (1977)
This is not the first song I remember; that would be John
Denver’s “Country Roads” (1973? 74?) which I have a vivid memory of hearing (and
maybe singing?) while playing on the floor at my grandparents’ house in
Wellsboro, PA. “You Light Up My Life,” which was a monster hit, all over the radio,
was the first song I remember deliberately trying to learn the words to, to
sing the tune, and to understand the meaning. I remember sitting on the swing
set in my parents’ backyard at the house on Irvine Place and singing the words
over and over again until they were committed to memory.
“Ode to Joy” Beethoven
This theme from the 9th Symphony was one of the
first pieces of classical music I learned to play when I began playing the
violin – so I probably learned it sometime in 1979 or 1980. It, along with
Hayden’s “Minuet” and Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” is ingrained so
deeply in my brain that I often hum it unconsciously, I finger the left hand
when I’m trying to calm down or take my mind off something stressful, and now
that I am older and know the hymn ("Joyful, joyful we adore thee) associated with the tune as well, it
resonates deeply in my soul (as does Beethoven’s 5th Symphony). When
I die, I want this hymn sung at my funeral, and I want to imagine that heaven
is full of music beyond all comprehension.
“Flowers on the Wall” The Statler Brothers
The family vacation, all of us and all our stuff piled into
the station wagon, heading south (sometimes north) and listening to the
radio….One of the station wagons our family owned had a new-fangled 8 track
tape deck in it, and we carried along a small selection of music – and the one
song that sticks in my head forever is this one….we played that tape over and
over and over (or so it seemed to me) so that we all hated the song. (This was
just before cassette tapes and branching away from the AM gold into FM pop
radio.)
“I’m on Fire” Bruce Springsteen
In the fall of 1984, I began high school and immediately
crushed on a foreign exchange student. As girls are wont to do, I shared all my
crush-worthy dreams with my best friend, telling her how much I “liked” him and
never daring to do anything about it (story of my life, mostly). One day,
sometime that fall, she asks me to sit down in the lunchroom and says she needs
to tell me something – over the weekend, she’d “made out” with my crush at a
party to this song, and knowing my feelings for him, she wanted my blessing?
approval? permission? to go ahead and date him. I said yes, of course, because
I was all about people-pleasing, and then I cried a lot. I've long since
forgiven her and know I dodged a bullet with him, but this song still pains me
and I’m 14 again, twinging deep in my soul, reminding me of the bittersweet
crush and betrayal of a best friend.
“Moondance” Van Morrison / “Could I Have This Dance?” Anne
Murray
The summer between high school and college, I watched two
little girls in the afternoons so that their mom could go back to work. They
were like three and 6-8 months old, so they napped a good portion of every day
and after I’d done the dishes, there was not much for me to do except read or
watch television, and I got hooked on soap operas. I’d watch “All My Children,”
“One Life to Live” and “General Hospital.” Then I discovered “Santa Barbara,”
which was way more romantic and sweeping, and I would then flip back and forth
between it and “General Hospital.” This was the summer of the romance between
Eden’s sister and Cruz’s brother (I have no idea of their character names, nor
of the actors who played them) but I remember them being shipwrecked, I think,
on a deserted island, maybe, and a romantic dancing/kissing scene with
“Moondance” playing in the background.
I've only once been asked to dance at a wedding (and I've
been to a bunch of weddings over the years) and it was to Anne Murray’s song
(that I've always liked), at Becky and Guy’s wedding, that Jimmy (a guy
from church who I’d known forever) asked me to dance. It ranks as one of the
best moments in my life (and I’m sure he had no idea). Anyone who wants to
romance me need only put one of these songs on and ask me to dance.
“Walking on Sunshine” Katrina and the Waves
No matter how old I get, how many songs I hear, I will
always be a child of the 80's, and this song will always make me happy. It just
does.
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