I’ve been listening to a lot of “the oldies” while on my quest to clean and purge the house.  Music has always been my escape because in the 80/90’s, home life was different.  I mean, DUH.  But also different growing up in a small town, growing up as an only child.  I was only allowed to watch tv a certain amount—not that it would have mattered because there were only about 30 channels and the only one I was interested in was VH1.  Yes, we only had VH1 in my town—you had to go one town over to get MTV.  It didn’t really matter because they played music videos and that’s what I was raised on.

My first cassettes were Madonna’s True Blue and Whitney Houston, I got them the same Christmas that Santa brought me a red boombox.  I thought I was the shit.  Granted it only held one tape, so if I wanted to make a mixed tape I have to get my dad’s recorder and set it up speaker to speak and NOT MAKE A SINGLE SOUND while it was recording.  Obviously a lot has changed since then, and while I do love having 7000 songs on my iPhone, I have nothing but fond memories of that boombox and making tapes from the radio of all the “good songs” during the weekly Top 40.

My oldest sister once told me that there would come a time when I would musically freeze–the newer stuff would become noise and I’d only want to listen to the jams that spoke to me in my heart and memories.  This was during my freshman year of college and of course I thought she was cray-cray.  If there is anything that I’ve learned from having siblings that are 13,16,17,20&21 years older than me it’s that they are smart folks who really do know what they are talking about.  I haven’t frozen completely, but there is definitely a shift in my playlists over the last decade.  My shift isn’t necessarily the music itself, but the stories that are told.  Being a child of music videos helped shaped my creativity and imagination because every song was a story waiting to unfold.  If I had been more graceful I might have taken dance more seriously instead of getting kicked out for not paying attention. (remember, in the 80s ADD wasn’t a thing—you were just a hyper pain in the ass to all your teachers) Dancing is still my favorite thing to do, and I do it all the time.  ALL the time. Just ask the boys at camp, or my neighbors if I’m cleaning the kitchen with the curtains open, or anyone ever driving behind me.  The best compliment on my uber-white girl jamming I ever got was “Gurl, you really do dance like no one’s watching.”.

What I miss about the days of MTV playing music and artists actually making EPIC videos is that it would glue into my memory and then no matter when or where I hear it, I’m right back there.   Music has evolved with everything else and that makes me more than a little sad when I’m rocking out to Heart and realize that none of the lyrics are really applicable today.  No one sits and waits by the phone. Ever.

Thus ends this soapbox about music.  There will be more…..with music, there is always more.