Springsteen Revisited

 

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.

On Being 70

 In a few days I will begin my journey into the 70s. Not the 1970s, the ages between 70 and 80.

It sounds so old!

I don’t look in magnifying mirrors anymore. Not that I ever did. I had no use for them. But they truly don’t reflect who I am. I’m not just a set of wrinkles, under-eye bags, dark circles, and a scar here and there. Those things are the result of weight gained and lost, sleepless nights and being clumsy.

And I am clumsy, both in movement and the things I say.

When my husband and I were first dating, I mentioned that I tend to fall up the stairs. He laughed and said no one does that. A few weeks later I did just that, and he never again doubted when I said something that didn’t appear to make sense on the surface. I can also trip over nothing.

I’m clumsy in conversation, too. While not everything that enters my brain falls out of my mouth, occasionally that happens, and I think, “Did I say that out loud?”

While I generally engage brain before opening mouth, sometimes something I want to say sounds fine in my head, but when it comes back and hits my ears, I realize I didn’t phrase it quite right. Or it sounds insulting or rude when that wasn’t the intention at all.

Sometimes someone will take offense at something I’ve said, and even if they tell me they’re offended, they never bother to tell me what offended them. Usually, that’s something written, and when I look it over, I can’t find a thing that would be offensive. But perhaps that’s because I know what I meant, and I get the intention even if it’s not on the page.

I’m especially bad at written word multi-tasking.

I spend entirely too much time checking in on Facebook. Occasionally, either something to do with my computer or with Facebook causes things to stall. If I’m in the middle of something, I know I’ll never be able to find it if I simply close the window and start over. So, I leave the window open and open another window with Facebook on that as well. 

Sometimes I completely forget about the first window, but I have been known to go back and forth between two. On a few occasions, I wrote something on the wrong thread.  That’s embarrassing. Once, I even wrote something on one thread, thought I pushed the send button (I may have, but it was an evening of glitches, so it apparently didn’t go through) and went to the other window. I typed a reply to what was going on there, hit send and closed that window. Unfortunately, the second reply didn’t go where it was intended, but was merely added onto the first reply. When I hit send, both answers were on the same comment, and went through as one. That happened to be the window that closed. It turned out that the snarky comment meant for the second thread, went onto the first thread, but because the window was closed, when I returned to Facebook, I couldn’t find it anywhere. A whole bunch of people reading the thread between me and someone they don’t even know, got offended. Some of them never ever comment on what I write.

They did that night, and some haven’t spoken to me since. People tend to only see the offense and never the apology or explanation afterward.

That’s one of those things I think, if I could go back and undo it…

Needless to say, I no longer try to multitask on Facebook. I also don’t worry about people who unfriend me – especially the ones who have to make a big announcement to make sure I know.

Regrets, I have more than a few.

I think my clumsiness in what I say is the reason I have had many friends disappear throughout my life. I’ve watched a few people get twitchy when I say things like, “I’ll be friends with most people as long as they let me. Then they leave.”

Friends and acquaintances fall into two camps. One group thinks I’m very quiet. The other wonders if I ever shut up.

The ones who think I’m quiet are either those who don’t know me, or people who talk over me.  Why do I think they do that? No idea in the world. Rudeness, maybe? Or perhaps I’m just invisible.

The second group are usually people I know well. We have commonalities. If the conversation is something I’m passionate about, like books or being left-handed, I can go on and on. It can be quite noisy in my head, what with the ideas I have cooking for novels, blogs or what I’m planning for a vacation.

In a group, I often find myself trying to fight my way into a conversation. I’m there. I have an opinion or something to say about the conversation, and I’m supposed to be part of it, but it’s often like trying to learn how to jump in when other people are turning a jump rope.

I’ve only recently realized I do this – slow learner, I guess. Now, when I recognize it happening, I just stop. They just don’t want to hear what I have to say, so why say it? Unfortunately, when I withdraw from participation, I have difficulty continuing to follow the conversation, and I start thinking about something else, like what I want to add to whatever story I’m currently writing. If there’s a paper napkin around and I have a pen, often I’ll jot it down so I don’t forget. This is when people usually tell me I look bored. I’m not. I’m just not where they are.

I’ve tried in the past to make up my mind beforehand to just remain quietly on the sidelines unless someone directly asks me a question. Often, when I’ve decided to do this, it somehow opens the floodgates and I end up talking. A lot.

I admire people who can be laid back and calm, taking in things and then being able to quietly deliver non-judgemental, pithy observations. I think of them as hippies. Some people are just so sedate. I used to think you eventually got to that point when you got older. I’m still waiting.

I’m more like the bull in a china shop when it comes to self-expression. It’s not that I’m forcing my way in to conversation where I don’t belong; I simply tend to verbally knock things over while I’m waiting my turn.

When I do express myself, the hippies often “maturesplain” things to me as if I couldn’t possibly see the other side of the subject. I see it. I also know that, just like them, I am entitled to my own opinion. Their explanation usually begins with the words, “You don’t understand…”

I hate that. Generally, all it means is, “I don’t agree with you, so let me tell you what to think.”

No point in arguing. They don’t want to know. So I go back to my mental conversations with my characters.

Still, I keep trying to improve myself. I would like to be that calm person – without being condescending to people they don’t agree with.  It’s just so hard to pay attention when you’re not part of the conversation. And I’m usually not calm.

It’s difficult to sit still. I’m the one in the crowd chewing my pen top or bouncing my foot. I’m not impatient. I usually don’t even realize I’m doing those things. Often those things are all that stand between me and falling asleep.

My 10 year (assuming I live that long) goal is to learn how to be the calm person, the one taking it all in – which I’m usually doing – but not commenting – which I’m usually not doing.

Well, that and losing the 40 pounds I gained when I changed careers.

Thanks for the Memories?

 

 

Memory is a funny thing.

I have very clear – if few—memories from when I was three and four, albeit long ago in a village not-so-terribly-far-away, but I don’t remember the 1990s.

I remember clearly all of the intervening decades, but the 1990s – indeed the first decade of the 2000s as well – escape me.

Don’t interrupt – at this point in every story, someone interrupts with a fact that I know. Just wait.

Yes, I remember that near the end of the 1990s Princess Diana died. That’s my “Do you remember where you were when” moment. The people who eventually bought our townhouse came to see the house during the televised funeral.

Overshadowing the keen desire to move out of a townhouse and move into Oz – I mean Hopewell -- was the week or so of news video of the crash, theories of what – or who – caused the crash and my personal surprise of, wow, she was dating? She dated that guy? I never heard of him, but no matter how rich, I think she could’ve done better. Shows how little I paid attention to rag journalism.

But that death is simply a reminder that I do remember the ‘90s.

I met my husband at the beginning of the ‘90s. We married mid-‘90s, and Diana died at the end. But what I actually mean is I don’t remember the music.

Music has always been important to me. My earliest memories are set to a background of my mother singing Doris Day songs while she was doing housework or “Baby of Mine” when I was sad. She had a beautiful voice, and her relatives often said they had expected to hear her sing at Carnegie Hall one day – if only the depression and her working class upbringing hadn’t made that impossible. (Not to brag, but I’m the one who ended up singing at Carnegie Hall.)

I remember once rounding up my relatives, who were at our house for some occasion, and singing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”, and basking in their applause when I finished. Not bad for a shy four-year-old.

The bottom edge of the ‘50s and pre-Beatles ‘60s were musically all about Ricky Nelson for me, as well as “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” and Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Then there was the British Invasion in my formative eight-year-old brain. Figuring out math problems and learning to spell were set to the music of my youth.

I relied on the Monkees and Herman’s Hermits to keep the psychedelic late ‘60s music away. When I learned that the Monkees introduced the world to Jimi Hendrix, I was furious. How dare they? Of course, Jimi, Janis Joplin and the Doors, etc., were the worst thing that could happen to music as far as I was – and am – concerned, although, oddly, I liked Jefferson Airplane.

I’ve always considered the ‘70s as the worst decade of music, starting as it did with the drug-induced psychedelia, and ending with disco. But on closer inspection, it wasn’t all bad.

I liked folksier aspects of ‘70s rock: Three Dog Night; Peter, Paul and Mary – and no matter what anyone says, “Puff the Magic Dragon” was a song about a dragon, not drugs – Crosby, Stills and Nash; Carly Simon; Joni Mitchell; The Moody Blues and Dan Fogelberg made the decade worth living in for me.

I also discovered what was being called alternative rock: Emmerson, Lake and Palmer, King Crimson, David Bowie and Renaissance, among others, and love it.

Of disco, the less said, the better. I did like the Bee Gees, but I liked them before Barry Gibb discovered his falsetto.

For me, the ‘80s came as a relief. Bell bottoms, body suits and leisure suits went away – as did the acid rock performers – well, many of them died of drug overdoses.

Music exploded into the kinds of songs I craved: OMD, Duran Duran, The Thompson Twins, Tears for Fears, The Fixx, Wham, and so many others, especially from the UK, that it was basically a second British invasion.

People would say my music should be ‘70s, since those were my high school and college years. While I liked the folk and alternative of that period, I liked the ‘80s music better.

Although I graduated from college in the ‘70s, the career I’d trained for failed to materialize under the guise of Catch 22 – you can’t get a job without experience, which you can’t get without a job. So I experienced a rather elongated adolescence,working in my 20s in jobs my peers had done in high school.

As I worked on a variety of short-term jobs for which I was desperately overqualified, my peer group became increasingly younger. My interests simply didn’t correspond with my married-with-children friends from high school, and my wages weren’t even enough to allow me to buy a decent car.

By the late ‘80s, I’d held most of the jobs I said I never wanted to do – except become a parent – and I returned to college to train for a career that I was not that keen on, but that I could actually get upon graduation, and make a decent salary into the bargain.

Having just emerged from a 2-year course of study that caused me to lose track of most of the music from the final two years of the ‘80s, the ‘90s appeared.

Yes, stuff happened in the ‘90s. I returned to fencing, joined a writing group for the brief few months that it lasted, met my future husband, and got my first computer. I know there was music, but I was still listening to the ‘80s stuff I’d so loved.

There was also a lot of personal chaos for me in the ‘90s. I discovered there was no dearth of backstabbers and gas lighters in my job, making me feel constantly on the defensive.

On top of that, I had to dodge blind dates. People tried to convince me some guy I wouldn’t have shared the answers to a quiz with was “perfect” for me. Translation: you’re single; he’s single. One girl told me she personally thought the guy she introduced me to was a jerk. (I guess I learned what she thought of me!)

Fortunately, I met my future husband when I wasn’t looking (well, I was looking. It was across three feet of steel, and I managed to get the fencing touch while he was posing in his lunge.) Until a few weeks before he proposed, I hadn’t entertained the idea that he ever would.

 Of course, people asked all the preposterous questions based on my age at the time. What marriage was this for me? (First, last and only. If it didn’t work, it would’ve been the universe’s way of saying I shouldn’t be married.) Why did you wait so long? Geez, I married the first guy who asked!

But through all of that, while there was music, I’m not sure what it was. There wasn’t a British Invasion. There was no singer I combed gossip magazines for pictures of. There was nothing to hang the music on. Instead, I began following certain actors' careers.

There was one song: “All for One” by Sting, Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams. It became our song. Why? It was the theme song for a swashbuckler film. My husband I are fencers, and we both like the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods of history.

So, wracking my brains, I’ve come up with artists I think were from the ‘90s: The Manic Street Preachers, Tokio Hotel, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Five for Fighting and The Goo Goo Dolls.

I could be wrong. They might be from the early 2000s. I’m not sure. I’m no longer on the cutting edge of pop music. I know I have their CDs, whenever they were.

Maybe it’s just that current music doesn’t interest me. Most things seem to be (C)rap, hip-hop or Cher sounding like she’s singing under water (“Do You Believe”). The couple of Taylor Swift songs I’ve heard are pretty good.

So, I guess I’ll just go back to my ‘80s music and try to figure out what, exactly, Simon le Bon is singing in “Union of the Snake” and leave the next era of music to someone else.