* "The Sign" by Ace of Base - I had a friend in grad school (he went to the U of Mitten) named John. He was from San Antonio and loved music by Metallica and Pantera (we'd do the Pantera claw thing as a greeting to each other). But he really liked "The Sign" and used to sing it all the time, and it would just slay me to see this kind of diminutive Latino guy dancing around and singing with a Swedish group.
"I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes
I saw the sign
No one's gonna drag you up to get into the light where you belong
I saw the sign"
I saw the sign
No one's gonna drag you up to get into the light where you belong
I saw the sign"
* "I'm Every Woman" by Whitney Houston - This is actually what brought up the idea for this posting. My first boss at the test prep place was Andy. He was a very, very good-looking guy. Wore great suits and always had nice haircuts and stuff - took good care of himself. He was a big fan of Elton John. I can't even tell you the extent of his love for Elton John's music. But anyway, Andy handled all the stuff at the office requiring any physical work, like changing the lightbulbs over my desk, and one day he was standing on my desk changing bulbs (those really long fluorescent ones) and "I'm Every Woman" came on the radio. He was singing along and dancing, using the bulb as a microphone, and suddenly said, "Thank God no one else is seeing me do this, because I'd never hear the end of it." It was beyond hilarious and I can still see every element of that scene in my mind.
"Whatever you want
Whatever you need
Anything you want done baby
I'll do it naturally
'Cause I'm every woman
It's all in me"
Whatever you need
Anything you want done baby
I'll do it naturally
'Cause I'm every woman
It's all in me"
* "Joy & Pain" by Rob Base & D.J. E-Z Rock - My first job was in the bakery at IGA (the grocery store). I worked there from when I was barely 16 until I was 20. Along the way I met many good friends there (and many transient ones... that's a story for another time), including Diane. She started as a clerk but eventually started doing accounting in the morning, so I saw her when I came in early to bake bread or fry donuts. We were the same age and both went to the college so we started to spend time together. I was there for the Pauly period and she unfortunately had to deal with the Russ incident and aftermath, and also Chris in the livingroom with the underwear on the wall. But that's all beside the point, which is that we'd often have parties at which we'd listen to music, and "Joy & Pain" was popular then. (It was during that period when incredibly sheltered "white folk" started to listen to rap and hip hop music with impunity.) And Diane, for reasons that remain unclear to me, loved this song. She knew every word and would sing (loudly and not too well) and dance (if one can dance loudly, she did, but with more skill than she sang) and basically lose herself in it. It was extremely funny. And that's the reason that when I hear "Joy & Pain" I think of a really fair-skinned young woman from White Bear Lake.
"Used to be friends but now we're foes
Ask me why, man, no one knows
Maybe jealousy between you and me
Could be the fame, could be the money
I'm goin' for mine and I don't really care
Cuz the spotlight Rob Base don't share
I'm the headliner of this show
And you're just a kid and you need to grow"
Ask me why, man, no one knows
Maybe jealousy between you and me
Could be the fame, could be the money
I'm goin' for mine and I don't really care
Cuz the spotlight Rob Base don't share
I'm the headliner of this show
And you're just a kid and you need to grow"
"Midnight" by Yaz - Oof, this is a hard one. One of my very good friends in high school was Sara. One of our shared interests was music, and for my 17th birthday (I think?) she gave me a mix tape called "The Aim Mix" ('cause she called me Aim, which is both short for my name, duh, and also a play on how she'd write it, which was the inverted V of the A with a horizontal arrow for the line). On the mix was "Midnight", the first song I'd ever heard from Yaz.
Around that time, I was spending a lot of time at work with a guy (SP) who went to the other high school in town. We did a lot of stuff that I probably should've "explain[ed] in detail on a separate page" of the moral character and fitness section of my bar exam application. We stole a decent percentage of the political signs from town. We "borrowed" those reflector things (metal pole about 3' high, little round reflector at the top) from the ends of driveways and left them all at the end of some appointed driveway at the end of our travels for the day. In perhaps our finest, lowest point, we drove past a Big Wheel that some poor schleppy kid had left in the street, and took it. We took a kid's Big Wheel! We rationalized that he shouldn't have left it in the street. We put it in the hatchback of my car. Around two weeks later, we figured he'd learned his lesson, and we gave it back. If my parents ever looked in my car for any reason and found things like 50 Carlson for Governor signs or a Big Wheel, they were probably horrified but not enough to actually ask. Ignorance is bliss.
And that, unfortunately, segues nicely into the point of this rumination. SP and I had a lot of fun together and I liked him a lot. I wish there was some way for me to graphically illustrate the extent of "a lot". I think I was in love. No, that's not right. I was. in love. with him. And I was incredibly naive, so I assumed that it would be ok to tell him that I cared about him or something along that line. I don't remember what I said. Something about there being a string between us and feeling like anytime he wanted something from me he had only to give the gentlest tug and I was right there to do whatever he wanted, and wanting to know that he felt the same tug. He was surprisingly (as I think back on it now) gentle but honest, and he told me that we were only friends. Well, he lied at that, because friends don't spend that kind of time together doing those kinds of things, but anyway, that's that. I should be grateful that he was honest.
Only my heart was smashed in the treads of his size 13s. And I drove home crying, sure that I wouldn't survive, and if by some mistake I did, I'd never hurt so much over anything ever again. The tape from Sara was in the tape-player and the song "Midnight" by Yaz came on and filtered into my consciousness and will always remind me of that feeling and of him.
Around that time, I was spending a lot of time at work with a guy (SP) who went to the other high school in town. We did a lot of stuff that I probably should've "explain[ed] in detail on a separate page" of the moral character and fitness section of my bar exam application. We stole a decent percentage of the political signs from town. We "borrowed" those reflector things (metal pole about 3' high, little round reflector at the top) from the ends of driveways and left them all at the end of some appointed driveway at the end of our travels for the day. In perhaps our finest, lowest point, we drove past a Big Wheel that some poor schleppy kid had left in the street, and took it. We took a kid's Big Wheel! We rationalized that he shouldn't have left it in the street. We put it in the hatchback of my car. Around two weeks later, we figured he'd learned his lesson, and we gave it back. If my parents ever looked in my car for any reason and found things like 50 Carlson for Governor signs or a Big Wheel, they were probably horrified but not enough to actually ask. Ignorance is bliss.
And that, unfortunately, segues nicely into the point of this rumination. SP and I had a lot of fun together and I liked him a lot. I wish there was some way for me to graphically illustrate the extent of "a lot". I think I was in love. No, that's not right. I was. in love. with him. And I was incredibly naive, so I assumed that it would be ok to tell him that I cared about him or something along that line. I don't remember what I said. Something about there being a string between us and feeling like anytime he wanted something from me he had only to give the gentlest tug and I was right there to do whatever he wanted, and wanting to know that he felt the same tug. He was surprisingly (as I think back on it now) gentle but honest, and he told me that we were only friends. Well, he lied at that, because friends don't spend that kind of time together doing those kinds of things, but anyway, that's that. I should be grateful that he was honest.
Only my heart was smashed in the treads of his size 13s. And I drove home crying, sure that I wouldn't survive, and if by some mistake I did, I'd never hurt so much over anything ever again. The tape from Sara was in the tape-player and the song "Midnight" by Yaz came on and filtered into my consciousness and will always remind me of that feeling and of him.
"and now it's midnight it's raining outside
and i'm soaking wet, still looking for that man of mine
and i ain't found him yet
well all of this rain can wash away my tears
but nothing can replace all of those wasted years
in all of this i tell you i have learnt
playing with fire gets you burnt
and i'm still burning"
and i'm soaking wet, still looking for that man of mine
and i ain't found him yet
well all of this rain can wash away my tears
but nothing can replace all of those wasted years
in all of this i tell you i have learnt
playing with fire gets you burnt
and i'm still burning"
* "Wedding Bell Blues " by the 5th Dimension - Yeah, this is going to sound pretty weird. But I've got to explain something rather tangential for background to this one. I went to college in my hometown, starting when I was barely 18. I lived at home my first school year and part of the summer. Less than halfway through the summer I sub-let a house from a good friend for $75/mo. Her roommates went a little nuts not too long after, though, and I moved out. I needed a place to live (staying at home was cramping my style) and I was whining to my friend Maureen, a married woman with kids with whom I worked. She'd just had a huge fight with her husband and wasn't feeling too charitable toward him, so she said, "Why don't you stay in our basement?" I wasn't shy or willing to look a gift-horse in the mouth, so I moved in about a week later. I stayed in their basement, which had a separate entrance off the alley, but otherwise lived with them. (Bathroom upstairs, etc.)
Around that time I was still working at the bakery and getting to know the new dishwasher, Bill. He was a rugby player. I'd never known anyone who played rugby and thought it was barbaric and, secretly, extremely sexy. He thought I was a stuck-up intellectual snob (because I was a history major and didn't know anyone who played rugby). We antagonized each other constantly.
He left for Christmas break and all was well until New Years' Eve. I was home alone; Maureen and family had gone to visit relatives. The phone rang. It was Bill. He'd returned from Melrose Park or whatever Chicago suburb he lived in, early, because he couldn't get me out of his mind. He knew he had no right to ask and no reason to think I'd be available, but would I go out with him for New Years'? I was thrilled. It was very exciting. We went to a party and had a great time and it was all very "wrong side of the tracks" and fun. We spent the rest of Break together and it was a good time.
When school started again it wasn't as fun - in fact, it was kind of weird. My friends were sort of studious and quiet compared to his, who were always bloody and skipping class. We had nothing in common. But he hung around me constantly (when the bars were closed - he was 21 and I wasn't yet). Maureen, who had a song for every occasion and was always running around the house singing musicals, found the whole thing unendingly funny, and rather than saying "I told you so", she would just sing this song, which I will always associate with her.
Around that time I was still working at the bakery and getting to know the new dishwasher, Bill. He was a rugby player. I'd never known anyone who played rugby and thought it was barbaric and, secretly, extremely sexy. He thought I was a stuck-up intellectual snob (because I was a history major and didn't know anyone who played rugby). We antagonized each other constantly.
He left for Christmas break and all was well until New Years' Eve. I was home alone; Maureen and family had gone to visit relatives. The phone rang. It was Bill. He'd returned from Melrose Park or whatever Chicago suburb he lived in, early, because he couldn't get me out of his mind. He knew he had no right to ask and no reason to think I'd be available, but would I go out with him for New Years'? I was thrilled. It was very exciting. We went to a party and had a great time and it was all very "wrong side of the tracks" and fun. We spent the rest of Break together and it was a good time.
When school started again it wasn't as fun - in fact, it was kind of weird. My friends were sort of studious and quiet compared to his, who were always bloody and skipping class. We had nothing in common. But he hung around me constantly (when the bars were closed - he was 21 and I wasn't yet). Maureen, who had a song for every occasion and was always running around the house singing musicals, found the whole thing unendingly funny, and rather than saying "I told you so", she would just sing this song, which I will always associate with her.
"...marry me Bill
I love you so, I always will
And though devotion rules my heart I take no bows
But Bill you're never gonna take those wedding vows
Oh, come on Bill
Oh, come on Bill
Come on and marry me Bill
I got the wedding bell blues
Please marry me Bill
I got the wedding bell blues
Marry me Bill"
I love you so, I always will
And though devotion rules my heart I take no bows
But Bill you're never gonna take those wedding vows
Oh, come on Bill
Oh, come on Bill
Come on and marry me Bill
I got the wedding bell blues
Please marry me Bill
I got the wedding bell blues
Marry me Bill"
There are more, but that ties it up so nicely.
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