Now Playing: Rock On by David Essex.
Topic: Rambling on
Ann (dated 6/1) Wrote a blog entry which I've been thinking about since I read it, it's about song lyrics & their meanings to her, I've been working on a mental list of my own, but it seems they all have really long explanations, I'm going to put a similar one out one of these days for the lyrics part, for now though I'll share part of something similar which I wrote in my diary at 16 or so... songs & what they made me think of! Comments in parentheses are current day explanations.
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Boys Of Summer, by Don Henley, walking on the dirt bike trails in Haverhill, fall of 1984, (I lived with my uncle & aunt for 7 months of 84 as a live in babysitter & I found early on that when my uncle walked in the door at 6, if I didn't walk right out the door he'd get me to watch the kids some more 'since I wasn't doing anything' so I took to taking long walks on these dirt bike trails, listening to my walkman & daydreaming)
Over The Hill
s & Far Away, by Led Zeppelin, walking in the rain with my walkman (it seemed, for awhile if it was raining & I was walking this song would come on the radio- of course, in Mass you just have to turn the radio on & spin the dial & most any song you can think of comes on some station or annother- they have SO many up there! Here in Virginia, there's 2 stations I like & 6 I tolerate, I have 10 presets & not enough radio stations to fill them here!)
Call to the Heart, by Guiffria, (& if you remember this song- well, wow! I didn't remember it until I read it here in the diary!) Chrissy & her then boyfriend (this was in 1986) having a fight in her chevy m
alibu with about 4 other people in the car, we were on our way back to where he lived to take him back & 'never see him again' & this song came on the radio, she turned it up & of course, no one went home never to be seen again! (man, were WE sappy!)
What Does it Take? Honeymoon Suite, My cousin Jen got to, once, in our teenage years, come for a visit to my house for a weekend, it was great & this one hit wonder had it's moment in the sun right at that point so I remember the two together.
Whos Crying Now, by Journey, This is a really OLD one, the year it came out, 1981, My Uncle & Aunt took my Grandmother, their daughter, who was an infant at the time & Me to Salisbury Beach & this song was playing on the radio, My Aunt & Uncle were holding hands while it was on & I remember watching them & hoping I'd have a marriage like theirs (as opposed to like my parents loveless toleration) Of course, little did I know, they weren't destined to last either. (my personal opinion now? No one is- but maybe I'm bitter!)
The Breakup Song, by Greg Kihn, well, not my first breakup, I was 17 before I ever had a boyfriend, I loved the tune though, & I remember being bummed out because I didn't have a boyfriend to break up with!
Can't Find My Way Home, by Blind Faith, this is a song which I think I've known my whole life, this & American Pie by Don Mclean I had the weirdest feeling of deja vu when I 'first' heard them when I was 12 or 13, it turned out that at a year & a half or so I knew all the words to to American Pie, courtesy of my parents, I never heard it at all between then & age 12 or 13 & it was so weird I didn't conciously remember the song but I knew what every word would be before it was sung on the radio, I've never had any confirmation but Can't find my way was similar to that- I don't know where I'd have heard it though, American Pie was something of a novelty song, everyone was listening, my parents didn't listen to Rock & Roll though, just jazz so maybe a babysitter?
Can't ya See? by The Marshall Tucker Band, yes, the flute song, it deals with trains & I used to ride the train from Boston to Haverhill all the time, I grew up on the south shore of Mass but most of my Mother's family lived in Haverhill on the north shore, I would go to babysit my young cousins or see my older cousins who were nearer my own age & make a day of it, my father would drop me off at the T subway station, I'd ride to Boston, shop a little if I had any money, go to North Station & get a train to Haverhill, this song was always my companion, although because its a sad song it was more so while I'd be waiting for the train to take me back to Rockland & home after a weekend or week in Haverhill.
A lot of the songs I wrote about back in the 80s when I compiled this list I just wrote, summer of 85 or Christmas 86 (that's the pros & cons of Hitchiking by Roger Waters) I was chronicaly attatched to my walkman back then (I had 2 or 3, one or annother was always broken- the FM one was the standby & it wore like nails, I had my original sanyo walkman which I got in 1983 still working when I got divorced in 2000, that year, someone got it wet though & it had to be thrown away) I lived music, had a radio show on the local high school radio station (e
specially ironic since I was homeschooled & didn't actually go to school!) from the time I got up in the morning until I
was falling asleep in bed at night either the radio, the record player, tape deck or my walkman was running. Before I fell asleep at night I'd play the radio dial, as I mentioned before there's so many radio stations that you can scroll the dial & nearly every setting has annother station. I like a lot of different music & can remember going from REM's radio free Europe (back when it was their first 'hit') to Fare thee well by some hippie folk singer, maybe Carole King or Joni Mitchell? It was a very small radio station's sign off song & I'd try to tune in to listen at midnight on my walkman, it was a good song to doze off to,
'Fare thee well, my own true love,
I'm leaving the first hour of the morn
It's not the leavin' that's greivin me
But my true love that's bound to stay behind'
I'm surprised I can still remember the lyrics, it's been about 15 years!
But that's the thing about music, it's like smell to me, it brings up memories which have been buried for years, things I'd totally forgotten about, like there's annother old folk song which has been getting some play since hurricaine Katrina, 'The City of New Orleans' by Arlo Guthrie, I have a 45 rpm record of it & play it occasionally, I was surprised when my ex came across it & got excited, he had to play it,
it turned out he'd learned the song the way I did. There's a tv station in Boston, channel 56 & they'd play that song about 10 minutes before they signed on at 6 am each day over the test pattern, we both, as kids back in the 70s would get up early & turn on the tv to this channel for cartoons (back before Nickelodeon & Disney Channel- my kids don't belive there was such a time!) & get this song instead & over the years we both (seperately) gained a love of the song!
Annother thing I remember well is that up until I had kids I didn't sleep well anywhere but my own bed on the first night somewhere & usually stayed awake all night the first night somewhere other than home (Not a big deal to me, my relationship with my mother back then was such that I'd still prefer a sleepless night somewhere else over staying at home with her!) So at Gails, or my Great Grandmothers or my Uncle's house, I'd lie in the dark, sometimes too excited about the next days events to sleep, sometimes just unable to sleep because I wasn't in my own bed, & listen to the radio on my walkman. They play strange stuff on the radio at 3 in the morning I have to say!
I'm really looking forward to having an I-pod someday when I can afford it, I can't right now, but it certainly seems to be renewing the personal music delivery system which is what the Walkman was in it's day- & I'm all for that, of course, I think it's a little weird to have all my own favorite songs on it rather than a radio, that's one of the things I like about radio, you're at their mercy, if there's a song you haven't heard before but they want to play it, you're hearing it!
