Theme Week Two

It was 1967 and my brother and I snuck down the stairs to see what all the noise was. There in the middle of the living room was my hard working serious father with a long brown wig on playing my toy guitar. Ike and Tina Turner were singing “Proud Mary” in the background. People were laughing and singing. Ike and Tina, man could they rock. This began my love affair with music. (Good thing I didn’t know about the alcohol factor then)

The eight track player was the center piece of my 1968 life. My mother had left my brother and I with our father and it had been the three of us for over a year. My brother could do the “boy” things with Dad, but I had the music. At five I knew every word to “Suzie Q” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. And man could my 5 year old voice really belt it out. Dad and I were doing karaoke before it had a name. Those tapes with their wrinkled paper and words barely readable words from all the use were like candy to me. I loved the feel of them, sliding them into the player, and listening to the stories they would sing me.

The 1970’s arrived and so did my new stepmother and her 4 children. The seventies also brought the arrival of a record player and the birth of disco. My very first 45 was “It Never Rained in California”, by Albert Hammond. I played that song so many times the needle would skip over half the record by the end of the first month I owned it. The record player got delegated to a corner eventually but that was okay, I liked being alone. The music became my retreat. I loved Van McKoy’s “The Hustle”, and my 12 year old booty could hustle. Not only did I love music, it became my escape from an unhappy home life. “Saturday Night Fever” produced my first crush. John Travolta was just waiting for me to be old enough to marry him, I was sure of this.

The eighties are full of musical memories. “You’re in My Heart” and Rod Stewart are a much more vivid memory of losing my virginity than the actual act. 1981 was an eventful year for me. I graduated from high school, moved out of my childhood home, got married, and disco died. Gone were the disco balls and white polyester suits, here to replace them were the pop stars. “Endless Love” by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross played as I danced the first time as a wife. My daughter was born in 1983, and to this day the Lionel Richie song “You Are” invokes images of her as a baby. Madonna and I sat up many nights nursing a baby. Gone though, were the records; now the music came on cassette tapes. The eighties also brought music to the TV screen. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” had quite a different effect on a TV screen, than it did on the radio. That was about the only reason to turn a TV on in my house. I never really got into MTV though; I liked having my own images of what the song meant.

Hair bands, monster love ballads, and hip hop some of the music of the nineties. I am not even sure what they all the music of the decade. Regardless of what the genre of the music it has definitely been a friend to me. As I age, I enjoy the remakes of songs I used to listen to. When I hear Martina MacBride singing “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, I can still picture Lynn Anderson’s orange eight track tape, and picture my parents as they danced to her version of it.