the history of me and music

[lululuvsol]

Jewel's new album is supposedly "autobiographical" in that it has songs about things that have happened in her life in the order that they happened in. I've not heard it yet (other than one song) but it got me thinking about songs that have marked places in my musical tastes over the years. So I decided to upload some songs that I was taken by or were important to me for some reason musically, and mention a few other songs that I loved over the years. (All links are YouSendit) Let's go...


Madonna - "Lucky Star"

My first musical memory ever was this song coming on the radio as we were driving down the highway one time and I was in the way back of our old blue Oldsmobile station wagon and I crawled over the seats in excitement saying "I LOVE THIS SONG, MOMMY! Turn it up!". I got the single, and everytime I go through my old records and see it it makes me smile. I was only about 4 at time this song came out and couldn't read at the time but i wanted to listen to this song a lot and I would always be running to my mom to ask her to tell me what side the song was on so I could listen to it because I couldn't read the words. My mom got so sick of me asking that she drew a star on the side that "Lucky Star" was on so I would always know what side it was on. So now everytime I see that record there's the star my mom drew for me because I couldn't read yet, and it makes me smile.

Cyndi Lauper - "(The Goonies Are) Good Enough"

The first musician I really loved was Cyndi Lauper. When she came out I just thought she was the bees knees. She came out around the same time as Madonna and I thought Cyndi was so much more talented (well duh, she is) and thought she'd go a long long way. I got most of her singles that came out, and was so excited to see her in The Goonies (which I saw at the theater on one of my friends 5th or 6th birthday party) and listened to this song, her theme to the movie over and over. The movie became my favorite movie for years and years (still a favorite) and the song is just nostaligiarrific now. So much fun. Cyndi remains someone I respect and admire wholeheartedly to this day, what an awesome lady.

Elvis Presley - "Jailhouse Rock"

When I was little most of my music consumption came from listening to the radio on car trips with my parents. About once a month we'd drive to the Philadelphia area to go shopping and on the way home my parents would put on this Sunday Night Oldies show. I always loved the oldies and my mom always encouraged it, she thought it was great. She said i was born in the wrong era. This was always my favorite oldie and I made myself a tape with this song on it 4 times in a row so I wouldn't have to rewind to hear it again and I remember in 2nd and 3rd grade I'd come home from school and put this tape on and jump on my bed and sing along. Those were good times.

The Bangles - "Bell Jar"

The Bangles were my first real musicial obsession. I got into them as everyone did, when 'Walk Like an Egyptian' got popular. I got that album, and later their "Everything" album and listened to them nonstop. I had every lyric memorized, I still know the names of all the girls in the band, I have Susanna Hoffs 2 solo albums, as well as the lacklustre reunion album that came out a few years ago. When I was growing up I would listen to these albums so much, and would play them really loud and sing along and sometimes dance around my room. I thought they were geniuses. This was my favorite Bangles song growing up. I was so taken by the lyrics about this misunderstood girl. Looking back at the lyrics now I see that this is very much a depressing tale about a girl who is well loved, probably famous, who "dresses in black" is "oh so lonely" and who sort of goes mad and writes a suicide note to "excuse her from this world" because she "sufficated living in a bell jar". The concept of the song is still very intriguing to me.

Bon Jovi - "Blaze of Glory"

Come on, what girl that grew up in the '80s didn't have this song memorized? I adored this song. This was another song that, again, I put on a tape like 4 or 5 times so I would not have to rewind it all the time because I would come home from school and listen to it on repeat. I rarely listened to the rest of the album, I was too obsessed with this song to care. I still can sing every goddamn word. It's a classic, how can you not love it? Ahh, the memories.

Deee-Lite - "Smile On"

In 7th grade I bought Deee-Lite's "World Clique" album while we were visiting my brother at college. It was a 2 hour car ride home and I listened to the album at least twice on the drive and i was so impressed with it. It was so different from other things I had heard. It was fun, had sort of funny lyrics, there was tons of weird sampling, instruments and noises going on and I was intruiged and so entertained by it. I got all their albums over the years, and enjoy them all, even though I suppose it is a strange band to be really into. Lady Kier, the singer, fascinated me. She was this tiny, attractive woman, who dressed like a drag queen, so strange, but such a cool voice. This was one of my favorite songs of theirs. They were always somewhat political, having "Let's face it, this is a pro-choice album" written right on the cover of their second album. This song I liked for more simple reasons. It was a nice concept. Smile. Everyone can smile, it's a universal sign of friendliness and that we should be kind to one another. I remember I wrote an essay on why I thought this song was so important sometime in high school, sort of lame now, but at the time I thought it was da bomb.

Disney's Pocahontas - "Colors of the Wind"

Okay, backstory...when I was little my mom bought me a children's book about Pocahontas. I was mesmerized, it was a favorite of mine and I read it over and over. It was just a 20 page book with beautiful illustrations, but I just thought that story was beautiful. I've always liked Disney, so when I found out Disney was releasing Pocahontas I was ecstatic. I bought the soundtrack long before the movie came out and played it incessantly. I was so into it for some reason. I would play it insanely loud and sing along, I remember getting goosebumps (okay, I still do) from it. My obsession with it dwindled when my father started making fun of me because I would play it so loud he could hear it downstairs and he started calling it "that blue corn moon song" and would teasingly ask me if the corn was blue or the moon was blue, har har. The whole soundtrack was really great, this was not something I would only listen to one song of, I loved it all. I still love it and think it's some of the most beautiful and powerful music from a Disney movie, but I am insanely biased.

Abba - "Take a Chance on Me"

I first heard Abba at a friend of mine's 17th birthday sleepover party when they were playing 'Dancing Queen' because it says "dancing queen, only 17" in it. If you can imagine, I had never heard that song before. I HAD heard Abba before, as I had heard "Fernando", I just had no idea it was Abba who sung it. My birthday was 2 months later, and one of the girls from that party got me a gift certificate to a local CD store and I bought Abba "Gold" with it. I LOVED it. I became known as Abba girl at school. I think the fact that I had no idea how uncool it was to like Abba made it possible, heh. All of the sudden I had bought all their albums, had seen Abba: The Movie, and bought the Abba box set too. It was just so fun and energizing and the craftmenship of the vocals and the music especially were really just amazing. When our graduation was covered in the local newspaper they mentioned something about finding out little things about the graduates, and "which one really likes Abba", hah. I was also voted most likely to start an Abba clothing line...because I liked Abba and because I was always drawing women, dresses, outfits, etc. People thought I would be a clothing designer I guess. This was always my favorite song though, it's just so goddamn catchy! Me and my high school best friend Abby would sit in art class and she'd sing the "take a chance take a chance take a chance" background vocals while I did lead, it was hilarious. Good times.

Lisa Loeb - "Do You Sleep?"

I got into Lisa Loeb because of her song "Stay (I Missed You)" as many people did. It was so different to me. Here was this girl, singing a very personal sounding song, sounding vulnerable, etc. It was fun to sing along to, and when I got the single, there was this girl in GLASSES on the cover. At that time (okay, probably still) it was fairly unheard of to have a pop singer with glasses. So to me she was like "smart, geeky, intellectual girl"...it spoke to me. At the time I had the "have to hear at least 3 songs before getting the CD" rule. So when her first single from her debut album "Tails" came out I was so ecstatic to hear it and know I loved it as much as the other song. "Do You Sleep?" was that first single, and it still remains a favorite, it's really quite good. It had a b-side "When All the Stars are Falling", and I loved that too...so it made me get the album, and it was one of the most important purchases of my musical life.

Jewel - "God's Gift to Women"

I heard Jewel for the first time in a friend's room. She was playing me "I'm Sensitive" and I adored it. How unique it was and I identified with it. As I remember I had yet to hear her single on the radio yet, but after that I heard it and soon after got the album. I was so impressed with the album that I tried to get my hands on anything Jewel. This was in 96-97 so CD burning was not something for the masses, however, you could find some CD bootlegs. I was able to find some, as well as get the limited edition vinyl version of Pieces of You that had 5 bonus tracks, and I was just eating it up. In the summer of '97 I attended my first Lilith Fair and went to one down in Maryland so that I could see Jewel perform specifically. This song is a song Jewel wrote before Pieces of You was released and was on some strange local compilation disc of female artists in the San Diego area. This song is so unlike any Jewel I had heard (and most of you no doubt) because it was so tongue-in-cheek and sort of angry and feministy. Wow! I am just including this track, despite it not being a favorite because if I hadn't gotten all into her bootlegs and stuff I never would have heard it. So now's your chance too.

Tori Amos - "Talula (original version)"

My getting into Lisa Loeb was important because of all the other musical doors in opened for me. One of the big ways it opened doors was by getting me to purchase the Twister soundtrack. On the Twister soundtrack were songs by both Belly and Tori Amos. I got into both of them heavily because of those tracks. This was my first real taste of Tori. I had heard of her, had a friend who was really into her, but I didn't know anything she sang. Once hearing "Crucify" I realized I had heard it before but had no idea who had sung it. So Talula broke me into being a Tori fan, and a few months later I got Little Earthquakes and never looked back. This is not the version of the song that was on the soundtrack, nor is it the version on the album I have, but this is the original version of Talula that appeared on the first pressing of her album "Boys for Pele"...it's really not as good as the Tornado version, which is the one most people know, but A) it's the only version I have on my hard drive at the moment, and B) I figure more of you would opt to download this one since it's more rare.

Splashdown - "Ironspy"

I first heard this song on a compilation I got free with a music magazine and I instantly fell in love with it. It was so spooky and different. The voice was very unusual too. I tried to find info on the band and found that the album that the song was supposed to be on was shelved and never to be released, BUT, they had an earlier album and if you ordered it on-line and sent the stocking guy an e-mail, he's send you a burnt copy of the never released album. Soooo...that's what I did. The band broke up soon after, but I was minorly obsessed with Splashdown for about a year around 2001. The record label went out of business soon after as well, but before they did they offered a deal to us devoted Splashdown fans (and they were fairly numerable for this small label, so they tried to please them) that if you bought another of these certain albums from their label that they'd send you this rarities and b-sides Splashdown collection. So yet again, more. I've followed the singer's solo act a bit as well, as well as another member's new project, but they just don't quite compare to Splashdown.

The only thing recently that I might consider to add would be Trespassers William's "I Know", but alas, it feels too recent to be counting on any such things as of yet...time will tell. For now, consider it an honorable mention. This list is always in progress.

Comments

[baka.livejournal.com]

FYI-
Kasson from Splashdown and Mel K are collaborating on something for Kasson's Symbion Project. This will probably end up sounding extremely familiar. I'll keep you posted as I see 'em.

[enna.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, rock on. Yes, please do keep me posted as I have been majorly slacking in keeping up with the Splashdown kids of late. Thanks!

[jstanotherdream.livejournal.com]

I am a huge Bangles fan myself. I snagged Bell Jar and the Jewel song.

[enna.livejournal.com]

Cool cool, glad to meet another fan!

[iphinome.livejournal.com]

yay lisa loeb!

[plathgirl41.livejournal.com]

Yay for this post. I love music.

[enna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I only wish my musical past wasn't so dorky! Haha

[nsoroma79.livejournal.com]

I am dying to get the new Jewel CD!!! I want it so bad!

[enna.livejournal.com]

I want to get it too...but I am not in any big rush. If I get go shopping this weekend I'll get it though.