Dust Bin This Was My Favorite Record When I Was Eight
posted by on January 19 at 16:55 PM
I wasn’t really the coolest eight-year-old. In 1988 I listened to Whitney Houston’s Whitney, Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual and Michael Jackson’s Bad. I also listened to New Kids on the Block. A lot. Now, nearly two decades later, my musical tastes have become a bit more refined (I’d like to hope, anyway)—I know who Rites of Spring are, I’ve seen Jawbreaker live—but still, those hits from my She-Ra playing years continue to haunt me.
Now usually I have to hear a song in order for it to get into my head—maybe Peter Cetera is playing over the grocery store’s loudspeaker, or maybe some annoying three-year-old brat is singing that “Baby Beluga” song at the zoo—but when I woke up this morning, the song “I Want To Dance With Somebody,” the first song on Whitney, was streaming through my head. It was there the instant I opened my eyes. It was there while I took a shower, it was there on the drive to work, and it’s here with me now as I type this… “I want to feel the heat with somebody, yeeeaaahhh!” This isn’t the first time this has happened. As far as I know, I haven’t heard the song for at least a decade (maybe even a decade and a half) but without fail, once every couple of months or so, I start singing the biggest hit of 1987 without any prompting at all. It’s the weirdest thing.
This afternoon, while trying to push Miss Houston out of my brain, I started thinking… I realized that the only songs that have this effect on me, the only songs that show up in my head for no good reason at all, are the songs I cherished in 1988—”I Want to Dance With Somebody,” “You’ve Got the Right Stuff (Baby),” “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” “Time After Time,” “Bad,” “Dirty Diana,” “Hangin’ Tough.” Of all the songs I’ve heard in my life (gazillions) and of all the songs that mean so much to me (hundreds), the only ones that inexplicably get stuck in my head over and over again are the songs that I listened to while wearing stirrup stretch pants and carrying a Rainbow Brite lunch box. My brain is stuck in a suburban skate deck circa 1988 until the day I die.
Does anyone else have this problem?
No.
"Time After Time" is one of the greatest songs of all-time.
Yes. I also have a poorly-formed pet theory (is that redundant?) that music informs the way neurons connect when you're young and that stays with you in a very strong way and influences to a degree all of your musical tastes post-25.
Cyndi Laupers' "She's So Unusual" was the first record I ever owned. My mom got it for me for my 6th birthday Nov. 2, 1985. I had begged for it for months. She made me promise that I wouldn't think I was "too cool" if she got it for me.
Yes. It happens all of the time. But, not with any of that crap that YOU listened to.
Cyndi was my very first hero ever. My mom has a story she likes telling people about how she was listening to She's So Unusual, and out of nowhere I said to her, "I want to be Cyndi Lauper when I grow up." She said, "You want to be a singer?" and I said, "No. I want to BE Cyndi Lauper." I must have been 3 or 4 years old at the time.
Today, I own 3 copies of this album: CD, vinyl, and cassette.
Jesus, Megan, are we twins separated at birth? Yes, this record RULES.
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