But, Mama, That's Where the Fun Is
You know that scene at the end of TV shows, where the young heroine drives off, towards her new life, with a deeply meaning-charged song playing in the background? Of course you do, not only did you just see it at the end of Laguna Beach, you also saw it last summer on the final episode of Six Feet Under.
Well, today, I lived it. On my way down to Annapolis today, to get my hair cut, I spent a lot of time thinking about - what else? - myself. During one particularly boring stretch of the drive, I reminisced with myself about all the great times I've had in my twenties: the days I lived in Canton; the six months before my brother left for law school; the amazing view I had from the roof of my last place in Annapolis; the list went on and on.
Lost in my reverie, I barely noticed the radio until, magically, I snapped back to the dulcet tones of Manfred Mann’s “Blinded by the Light.” For the next few miles, I continued on in my daydream, self-consciously laughing about that music as the theme song for my twenties.
After my haircut, I hopped back in the car, looking for a similar song to start my drive back home. Unfortunately, I found nothing. Instead, I found myself remembering the most random moments, all made personal and, somehow private, by songs.
…a few days before leaving for college, sitting at the Ben Oaks beach with my friends, listening to Love Rescue Me on someone’s car stereo…staring at my stereo play Losing My Religion just like Brenda did after she and Dylan broke up...dancing on a chair to Nelly’s Ride With Me (sorry - Ride WIT me) in a club in London’s Soho…dancing on another chair to Living on a Prayer on New Year’s Eve 1999/2000 and watching my friend Bill take a tumble that, we learned later, broke his collarbone…being in the middle of a thousand hippies jumping up and down to Bouncing around the Room at a Phish show in 1994…playing Anna Begins and So Cruel over and over again at parties my first summer home from college…singing Filter’s Take a Picture on the steps of a house in Canton with my friends from Europe, just after the trip…waiting for the mix CD to play Beast of Burden on Sunday nights with Alison, sitting at the front bar at Claddagh’s…blasting Chemical Brothers in my brother’s car after a Widespread concert…hearing Me & Bobby McGee at my wedding reception, just like I’d imagined since I was little…
I have so many more memories exactly like that, from the time I was a very little girl all the way up through today. Compared to a lot of people I know, I’m not very into music. I don’t know a lot about it, and I don’t really care that I don’t know much. In fact, I’d rather not know a lot. Why would I want to replace what I have – completely emotional memories – with a bunch of knowledge? The second I break music down into facts, or that I start wanting to know what’s new first, that’s when music would stop being purely emotional for me. And purely enjoyable.
P.S. I know the Phish and Widespread references make me sound like a hippie. Honestly, I never even really went through a preppy hippie phase. I just hung out with people who did. People like my brother.
Well, today, I lived it. On my way down to Annapolis today, to get my hair cut, I spent a lot of time thinking about - what else? - myself. During one particularly boring stretch of the drive, I reminisced with myself about all the great times I've had in my twenties: the days I lived in Canton; the six months before my brother left for law school; the amazing view I had from the roof of my last place in Annapolis; the list went on and on.
Lost in my reverie, I barely noticed the radio until, magically, I snapped back to the dulcet tones of Manfred Mann’s “Blinded by the Light.” For the next few miles, I continued on in my daydream, self-consciously laughing about that music as the theme song for my twenties.
After my haircut, I hopped back in the car, looking for a similar song to start my drive back home. Unfortunately, I found nothing. Instead, I found myself remembering the most random moments, all made personal and, somehow private, by songs.
…a few days before leaving for college, sitting at the Ben Oaks beach with my friends, listening to Love Rescue Me on someone’s car stereo…staring at my stereo play Losing My Religion just like Brenda did after she and Dylan broke up...dancing on a chair to Nelly’s Ride With Me (sorry - Ride WIT me) in a club in London’s Soho…dancing on another chair to Living on a Prayer on New Year’s Eve 1999/2000 and watching my friend Bill take a tumble that, we learned later, broke his collarbone…being in the middle of a thousand hippies jumping up and down to Bouncing around the Room at a Phish show in 1994…playing Anna Begins and So Cruel over and over again at parties my first summer home from college…singing Filter’s Take a Picture on the steps of a house in Canton with my friends from Europe, just after the trip…waiting for the mix CD to play Beast of Burden on Sunday nights with Alison, sitting at the front bar at Claddagh’s…blasting Chemical Brothers in my brother’s car after a Widespread concert…hearing Me & Bobby McGee at my wedding reception, just like I’d imagined since I was little…
I have so many more memories exactly like that, from the time I was a very little girl all the way up through today. Compared to a lot of people I know, I’m not very into music. I don’t know a lot about it, and I don’t really care that I don’t know much. In fact, I’d rather not know a lot. Why would I want to replace what I have – completely emotional memories – with a bunch of knowledge? The second I break music down into facts, or that I start wanting to know what’s new first, that’s when music would stop being purely emotional for me. And purely enjoyable.
P.S. I know the Phish and Widespread references make me sound like a hippie. Honestly, I never even really went through a preppy hippie phase. I just hung out with people who did. People like my brother.
posted by Kit Pollard at
4:08 PM
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