In my December blog, I discussed Christmas songs that I love and hate. One song I mentioned not liking was Bruce Springsteen's version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."
Yeah, so what? Right? Everyone's entitled, eh?
Well, no. I live in New Jersey, home of Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi.
It's almost a rule in NJ that you have to like one or the other, if not both. Stating a preference for one, you still don't diss the other. It's like being asked in the 1960s whether you liked The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. (I liked both, but I liked the Beatles better.)
Since I'm not from NJ -- I spent my first 39 years in PA -- I never felt like I was required to like either of them, although I have several Bon Jovi CDs.
I don't hate Springsteen, although apparently some people came to that conclusion because of my dislike of one Christmas song. I don't mind his songs. In fact, one year, when we were vacationing in Spain and Portugal, we spent July 4th in Madrid, where we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe with a group of other Americans. When the song, "Born in the USA" came on, our entire table (including me) stood up and sang the song with the record, so I even know the words to his songs.
I just don't have any of his records. But I don't mind hearing his songs on the radio.
I am, however, a radio button pusher in the car. If I'm not in the mood for a song that comes on, I will click through my six Serius XM stations looking for something better. And sometimes a song -- no matter whose -- is just not what I want to listen to at that moment.
But apparently I put some people off by criticizing a song -- even a seasonal one -- by the Boss. He just doesn't sing the kind of music I usually prefer to listen to. That's my taste, not his singing.
However, even the bands I love have songs I don't like.
I loved the Monkees back in the late '60s, and still do. I had the first seven of their albums. But I hated Head. It wasn't what I wanted for the Monkees, just like Sgt. Pepper wasn't what I wanted for the Beatles.
It probably helps to understand that I was a little kid, or at least not at Middle School level at that point, and they were adults. My tastes were not theirs, nor were my experiences. In my head, I wanted to one day be in the band, and I was very good at pretending. I was a good bit less skilled at growing up. (I still like watching Pretty in Pink and Dirty Dancing.)
With the Monkees, even in the first seven albums there were songs in the other six (besides Head) that I didn't like. I tended not to like Mike Nesmith's rockabilly songs, and absolutely abhored "Aunty Griselda". I couldn't believe Peter Tork could sing so off-key.
Lest the Mike Nesmith fans shoot hate thoughts at me, I did like "Different Drum," a song he gave to Linda Rondstadt and the Stone Poneys.
A Welsh band, The Manic Street Preachers -- a band eons away from the Monkees -- is a more recent favorite of mine. I have all of their albums exept the most recent one. While I like almost all of their songs, they have an entire album -- actually the one dedicated to a former band member who disappeared and has since been declared dead -- that I like nothing on. I don't care for the cover design, and the songs are simply not my cuppa. An entire album! But they're still my favorite 90s band.
There are some bands I used to like, but usually because of being overplayed on the radio, I can't stand to listen to anymore. Billy Joel is somewhat like that.
What?
I do like his, "Always a Woman" and almost everything on Nylon Curtain, but those songs rarely, if ever, get played on the radio.
"I Love You Just the Way You Are" has been so overplayed on the radio, as well as being center stage for almost every wedding reception I've been to since it came out, that I can't stand it anymore. "Piano Man" and "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" ( Y'know, "bottle of Red, Bottle of White...) are two others that will make me change the station when they start playing. They're just overdone, and I'm just over them.
The Carpenters were never a favorite of mine, but their songs on the radio didn't much bother me. Then I joined the Glee Club in high school. For four years I had to sing "Close to You" and/or "Rainy Days and Mondays" -- the choral versions, which are devoid of any emotion you might have been able to pretend to hear in Karen Carpenter's voice. And that definitely dimmed me on the Carpenters.
Then there are the earworms.
I loved Air Supply when they came out. Apparently so did everyone else. Now I can't bear to listen to them. It isn't that I no longer like them. I still do. But their songs are the kind that, if you hear one of them, it will linger in your brain on constant replay for days, if not weeks.
"Miracles" by Jefferson Starship is another earworm for me. Beautiful melody, if somewhat raunchy lyrics. But something about that song just burrows into your brain, and it's not even the, "Are they really singing what I think they're singing?"
I once went for a month where every time I relaxed or was about to fall asleep, the chorous of "Miracles" would play in my head. It kept me from falling asleep, and generally annoyed the heck out of me. I would have to actively start thinking of some other song -- ironically, it was often "White Rabbit" or "Go Ask Alice" from Jefferson Airplane -- to dig it out of my brain.
Eventually, that worm died, but I don't ever want to hear that song again in case it resurrects itself.
I'm not generally superstitious, but there are actually songs that I don't dare listen to because -- probably coincidentally -- every time I listened to them in the last century, something bad or at least unpleasant has happened shortly after hearing those songs. Two that I can think of are "Tempted" by Squeze and "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins. I happen to really like both of them -- even though I'm not quite sure what the Phil Collins song is about -- but I spent years switching the station if they came on the radio. Just in case.
Recently, since it's been a few decades, I've started tempting fate and listening to these two songs if they're played on the radio. Dangerous, I know, but so far, once I entered the 21st century, nothing bad has happened as a result of hearing either song so perhaps the jinx is over.
Music is a huge part of my life. As a singer and guitarist, I try to improve my performance skills. I spent years learning that piano isn't my instrument (I really need to be able to play something I can sing along with, and with two separate staffs to pay attention to, I just can't). I hope to be able to resume taking violin lessons soon, even though I know I won't be able to sing to that.
But singing is my primary talent, and I like listening to songs I can sing to.
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