Some songs are time travel songs, you know?
If I hear “I Melt With You,” I remember summer camp on the edge of Lake Erie, with an early morning wake up song blasting from a nearby pole while the coolest girls in each cabin ran outside to dance in the misty, damp grass in their pjs.
I didn’t know the song at the time, but it became synonymous with “This is what coolness sounds like.” I was probably 11? Maybe?
And then, this song transports me to age 13. I used to put a cassette stereo in my window – this one:
Remember those? I’m pretty sure I had an orange one, but it may have been blue? Either way, I would prop that against the screen (A/C? what’s A/C?) and blast music out the window and hang out on the driveway. And I Loved this cassette. I’m sure my neighbors did, too!
I also remember the parody of “What I Am” – I don’t remember if it was SNL or In Living Color – poking fun at Edie’s singing positions where the lyrics were, “I’m not aware of too many things, but I know that it looks like I pee when I sing.”
What songs transport you back in time? How old were you? What were you doing? Were you dancing on the driveway, too?
Friday Videos wish you a timeless, mellow weekend!
The two songs “Shout” by Tears for Fears and “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds always make me remember a moment in early summer (probably 1985) when my best friend (who was a summer-only resident in my town) arrived a week before her family and stayed with us. One of the activities we did was visiting Mystic Seaport, where the gift shop had dozens of jars of hard candy sticks in all colors, and my dad gave us money to get some (which was unheard of—we never had candy). Those songs also give me this feeling like I’m back being a tween and having my first taste of freedom, like getting to go to a movie without parents, and it’s such a nice feeling.
Soundtrack from the movie Grease, summer driving up and down in a foreign-to-me country, meeting my new-ish husband’s relatives.
80s music always takes me back to high school and college.
Edie Brickell (Sans Bohemians, new or otherwise) has done a couple of fairly recent albums with Steve Martin (who you might remember reporting on the first appearance of Godzilla — no, no, I kid, it’s the former comedian) who plays a pretty mean banjo.
HOW did I not know this. Thank you!!