Music has always been part of my daily life. Always. For as long as I can remember. I drive with it. I write with it. I read with it. I knit to it. I have music in my head when I wake up and when I go to sleep. I hum. I sing. I probably irritate the crap out of the people around me. Yes, I know. I irritate people for a lot of reasons. Today music is my topic though.
“Do you even realize that you hum incessantly?”
Well. I hadn’t before. Now I do. I made it to the age of 35-ish before someone pointed it out. I have to make an effort not to hum or sing at work or in other public places where people expect me to behave like I’m civilized.
It all started between the ages of 1-6:
The sound tracks from Hair, Hard Days Night and Mary Poppins.
This explains a lot about my personality. It really does.
Does it explain why I got busted for masturbating instead of sleeping during nap time in nursery school? Possibly.
My grandmother once yelled at my mother because I was running around singing songs from “Hair” at the lake. It was “Ain’t Got No” as I recall. One of the lyrics is “ain’t got no underwear” and that was my favorite part.
Later in life, I got yelled at while on a choir trip for singing “Sodomy” on the bus on the way to a competition.
It goes like this: “Sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, pederasty. Father, why do these words sound so nasty? Masturbation can be fun. Join the holy orgy Kama Sutra everyone.”
Someone remind me again why I had such a goody two shoes reputation…I was a singing sexual bandit from an early age.
Mary Poppins? Oh, well. That was probably the cause of my generally sunny disposition. I am not kidding. Listen, I smile all the fucking time. People in Italy told me.
Age 7:
In which I kicked a boy in the face because he kept singing “I Think I Love You” to me, and then got on his knees and tied my shoe.
In my defense, before kicking I did ask him not to touch me. He touched me anyway. I don’t think I was generally a mean little girl.
Yes, I was serious about what I said before about having a sunny disposition.
Age 9:
A friend and I were supposed to sing “Strangers In The Night” or maybe “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” at some sort of school talent show. For some reason, we decided to pretend we had stage fright and we hid. We came out when we heard them calling us on the mic. There were not two children less likely to have stage fright than the two of us. I do not know what possessed us. Normally we acted like the stage door brats we really were.
Age 10:
“Seasons In The Sun.” How I loathed it. It was the only song on the fucking radio for a year. Goodbye Michelle, it’s hard to die. Every hour.
The soundtrack to “Free To Be You And Me”
I looked forward to seeing it on TV for weeks. Then for some reason I got in trouble that day and was not allowed out of my room when it was on.
Trouble and music do seem to go hand in hand.
Elton John starts taking over the world at roughly this point.
Age 11:
I think this was the year I fainted during dress rehearsals for the Spring concert at school. I went down face first right off the risers, just like a board. My mom took me to the doctor that afternoon. Yes, I sang that night. I think I had a solo. I wasn’t about to let someone else sing it.
The songs of the year in choir were “Time In A Bottle” and “Killing Me Softly.”
In choir.
“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” with the BJLR quartet. We must have sung at every Eugene/Springfield civic function and nursing home in town that year.
Riding the Freedom Train from Salem to Springfield on my birthday, the Mayor’s wife sat across from me and recognized me. I felt like a rock star.
Age 13-14:
“Do You Wanna Know A Secret?” The Beatles
First love. First song lost to heartbreak. Losing a song is terrible.
It eventually came back.
James Taylor, Queen.. A lot of sitting on beds and singing. And not singing.
I remember sitting in my parents’ RV during a football game, listening to the radio with him and trying to decide what our song was going to be. I don’t remember if we ever picked one.
This is also the period when the One True Elvis came into my life when I heard “My Aim Is True” at a friend’s house.
Age 15:
“Love Of My Life” alternating with “Death On Two Legs” both by Queen. Heartbreak and anger. First love doesn’t last forever.
Age 16:
“My Sharona” and “the Stroke” in Sharon’s blue Pinto. Pop music and cheap champagne.
Age 17:
Driving around in a Celica singing along to the soundtrack to “the Rose”
Listening to my neighbor play Deep Purple and Pink Floyd on his bass every day. Every. Day. If he wasn’t keeping me awake playing them in his room, he was playing REO Speedwagon in our pool room.
Meanwhile, my cousin and her boyfriend were playing Elton and Queen.
Age 18:
At college, homesick, heartbroken, crying to “Eleanor Rigby.”
Of course, that’s the same month I went to a toga party at Harvard. When someone introduced me, the whole room broke into “Michelle” which was a probably the most impressive entrance I will ever make.
Music is a powerful connection to the past
You hear a song and it pulls you back to the place and the people you heard it with. Good or bad.
One song is so strongly attached to a certain sexual encounter that I blush any time I hear it. Thanks to the person who can make me blush in abstentia even 20 years after the fact.
If only I could get the full physical impact back just by playing the song…
Maybe I am just not listening hard enough!