I used to write lyrics down on paper and carry them around in my Trapper Keeper ( yeah! Trapper Keeper! I've missed your velcro music). I think I was hoping people would think that they were mine. This only happened once. I had the lyrics to Here Comes the Rain by the Mavericks, a 50's rock/country fusion song, and I set it gently on top of my Trapper Keeper. One of the most attractive seventh graders ( I think it was in seventh grade) picked it up and read through it. She said she liked it and asked if it was mine. I lied lied lied and said it was. I remember her smile as she asked if she could keep it. Of course you can. I wrote it for you.
Not true.
I've always loved music. My little boombox was on every hour of every day. It was on while I was away at school and it was on while I slept. The fact that the radio was on while I slept presented interesting situations. I would be playing Sega Genesis (or later on, Playstation) and I would hear a commercial come on the radio and I'd have wicked, wicked deja vu. After a few times I realized that the commercials that were playing were also playing at night, and I realized that someone in my dreams had said the exact same words as those being said in the commercial.
Music is a funny thing. I grew up listening to country and oldies. I don't listen to country anymore, but there's a seven year window (or so) where every country song released during that period I could name the singer, name of the song, and album during the intro. Therefore, I still have a lot of old country on my computer for the sole purpose of nostalgia. When I listen to these songs, I am whisked away to an idealized remembrance of my childhood.
None of the horrible times, none of the boring times, only the warm fuzzies.
There are specific songs and CDs (Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl, K. T. Oslin's 80's Ladies, and Huey Lewis and the New's If This is It) that if I listen to it I can close my eyes and quite clearly see my eight-year old self sitting on our old blue couch in the summer. The window is open and a faint, cool breeze is blowing. I feel the curves and angles of the X-men toy in my hand as I look outside and see my dad outside washing the car. My mom, she's in the kitchen cleaning. My dog is still alive and young enough to run circles around the dining room table. My parents probably still loved each other.
Warm fuzzies.
There are some songs that work adversely. For the longest time I couldn't listen to Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's It's Your Love. It was "our song" and it was the longest and oddest relationship I've been in to this day. Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" was one of the songs that played prominently at my brother's memorial service. I still can't bring myself to listen to the whole thing.
So, as mentioned, there's a song that's been nagging on me. It's by a now defunct (to my knowledge) Christian band that never really made it anywhere. I created a myspace music page in order to put it on my own myspace page (forgive me, O wrathful myspace gods).
Doubting Thomas' Maybe It's Her Smile
Maybe it’s her face
No makeup at all
As she tells me she’s not beautiful
Soft, golden, and wind-blown
As we drive through the streets of town
It could be all these things
But I think it’s her smile
Maybe it’s her laugh
Or when she throws back and sighs
Or her eyebrows when I do
Something stupid
The lotion she wears
Or how my hands smell like
Country Pear for days
You know it could be all these things
But I think mostly it’s her smile
Because I love to see her smile
Back at me
And I know she
Is happy
The feel of her hands
When she puts her tiny fingers
In mine
Maybe it’s her eyes
Gently searching my soul
Still nothing stirs me
Like when I see those lips roll
And I see her smile
Back at me
And I know she
Is happy.
3 comments:
How come you never post anymore? you used to update all the time. Don't you like us anymore? Don't you want us to have funny things to read when we should be working? Shame on you.
Maybe I'm just waiting to see how long it takes to get a comment . . . 8).
So you have a private blog and a public blog? That's an interesting idea.
Wow...so...yah, trapper keepers make me happy. I never had one, i had one of those mead 5 star notebooks with the zipper...that was pretty sweet. Do they still make those? I like that you lied about lyrics. There was a girl in my 8th grade math class named amanda who gave the teacher a poem claiming she'd written it, but then, my freshman year, i saw it performed in a show... LIAR. Oh well, i used to tell kids in grade school that i was from Germany. Ah, the motherland.
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