There are songs that stay with you for life for very specific reasons. Hearing a tune on the radio at a pivotal point in your life; maybe a death, a birth, a break-up, a declaration of love. These songs become more than the sum of their parts to you because they’ve grown roots in a moment of your life that holds something personal and meaningful to you. The Beatles’ “In My Life”, Dr. Dog’s “Army of Ancients”, and Wilco’s “Misunderstood” are just a couple that hold greater meaning to me due to hearing them at a very pivotal point in my life. They’ve become elevated to something more than just a song. They’ve moved into the mystical for me.
But there are songs that exist and echo in your mind not because of some emotional connection. Sometimes, you’re merely a passenger in life and these songs glob onto your subconscious and never leave. Or they’re attached to some oddball memory and you can’t erase them from your brain. It’s not that these were songs you liked necessarily, they were just playing at the right(or wrong) moment and they’re permanently etched into your mind. For the most part these are songs that I would hear incessantly sitting in the front or back seat of the family car, usually with my mom as we went into town or drove to my grandma’s or aunt’s house during summer break. I wasn’t old enough to necessarily have an opinion of my own in regards to what played on the radio, or I hadn’t yet begun my journey as a collector of music. I was just a toe-headed kid in Toughskins jeans and a Mork & Mindy t-shirt, excited to be doing something other than being bored at home on a Wednesday morning.
The following are a few of those songs for me. These aren’t songs I listen to, but they remain in my brain for all of eternity because crappy Midwest radio in the late 70s/early 80s liked to play songs ad nauseum.
Steve Miller : “Jet Airliner”
Steve Miller isn’t crappy. I love Steve Miller. But for some reason radio would rather beat one song over our heads until we thought we hated it. “Jet Airliner” was a great song that was just overplayed. It felt like every time we got into the car and turned the radio dial there it was. I can listen to it today and go back to a point of appreciation, but man did they play the crap out of it. There’s one very specific memory I have of the song, and we were in the drive-thru of First National Bank of Warsaw(FNBW for the locals.) I was in the backseat and my mom was driving. My older brother was in the front passenger seat. I have this memory of “Jet Airliner” playing on the radio and my mom and brother singing along to it. It feels very real, yet it’s so not something either of them would have done. I should ask my brother if he remembers that, but he burnt a lot of brain cells between then and now, so he probably won’t have a clue.
Paul McCartney & Wings : “My Love”
McCartney & Wing’s “My Love” was a song that whenever I heard it I felt very overwhelmed with emotion. And since it was played a whole hell of a lot when I was little I was a pretty emotional kid. I can recall driving to my grandma’s house with my mom. I was probably 5 or 6, and it was a dreary, overcast day. Not the kind of day you want when you were going to spend the day on a pontoon on the lake, but we didn’t have control over that. Sometime along the 40 minute drive to Rochester “My Love” came on the radio, and the part where Paul does the “Whoa, whoa-whoa, whoa/
Whoa, whoa-whoa, whoa/My love does it good” I’d feel this wave of emotion hit me. I think that was the point where I first felt how powerful a song can be. I could appreciate how music and lyrics together could move you in a very visceral yet simple way. It was the first time where I didn’t correlate sadness as something bad. It could be a way to access something under the surface.
Elton John : “Philadelphia Freedom”
I’m not the biggest Elton John fan. He had a good run of records in the 70s, and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was indeed a great album. But for the most part I never had a desire to listen to an entire Elton John album. I felt his records were equal part great songs and fillers. “Philadelphia Freedom” wasn’t a bad song, but repeat plays ad nauseum didn’t make it necessarily enjoyable after awhile. I remember liking the horn parts, hearing it blasting over the car speakers in my parents boat of a Monte Carlo. There were aspects of the song I quite liked, but it all got very old and even to this day when I hear it I can’t help but think about the feeling of being swallowed by the massive bench seats in that butterscotch brown gas guzzler.
Fleetwood Mac : “You Make Loving Fun”
I can’t remember for sure since I was probably 3 or 4 years old, but our family took a trip to Minnesota from our home in Indiana with my dad’s work buddy and his family in 1977 or 1978. We rented cabins by a lake somewhere in Minnesota, and it was deemed a fishing trip. There are indeed Polaroids of me in my pajamas, standing on a concrete porch pointing at a wire mesh basket filled with lots of fish. Pretty big ones, too. This was a long car ride, especially since there were five of us in that Monte Carlo. My uncle went along with us. He’s ten years younger than my mom, so at the time he was 15 or 16. I don’t remember much of the drive other than hearing Fleetwood Mac’s “You Make Loving Fun” playing every 20 minutes. Even my dad, to this day, will comment on how burnt out he got on that song during that road trip. He also talks about getting lost and driving nearly 90s miles out of our way around Chicago. That’s for another story.
Simple Minds : “Don’t You(Forget About Me)”
The Breakfast Club was huge in the early part of 1985, and Simple Minds’ “Don’t You(Forget About Me)” was even more huge on the radio at that time. School bus rides in the morning, road trips, and even MTV made that song part of the zeitgeist. Having watched The Breakfast Club recently I can say that the song is better than the movie. A lot of John Hughes output were of the time, and honestly don’t really resonate as well these days. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and Uncle Buck are still great thanks to the late, great John Candy. But for the most part whatever heft Hughes’ movies held seems to be rather featherweight in retrospect. Despite that, “Don’t You(Forget About Me)” is still a solid song despite being waaay oversaturated at the time.
Frank Mills : “Music Box Dancer”
“Music Box Dancer” is the perfect example of just how weird the 70s were. This was a radio hit. It played a lot over the FM dial and I’m still confused as to why it was. It’s this creepy little song with a schmaltzy piano line. I hear it and I think of dusty shops with knick knacks in it as the owner’s ghost follows you around continually asking if you want to see something on the top shelf. My biggest memory of this song is when I was probably 5 years old and going to my mom’s dance class. She took tap dance classes for a few years, early in my childhood. It was a bunch of women in their late 20s/early 30s getting out of the house and doing something, anything, than just hanging out at home. I remember the studio was in an upstairs space, and the wall of mirrors kind of freaked me out. And the owner/teacher of the studio hit play on a reel-to-reel tape player and “Music Box Dancer” started playing. Mirrors, leotards, and “Music Box Dancer”. I rest my case.
Leo Sayer : “When I Need You”
Leo Sayer, the guy with that helium high voice and white guy afro. His sadsack ballad “When I Need You” was huge. Like really huge. And I think there was a sensor that read every time we got in the car it would cue up that song to play first when the radio dial was turned on. That song was so grating, yet kind of defined those radio years for me. It was the pinnacle, the crest of 70s shite music that was overplayed. Leo Sayer broke me. I’ll turn it off if I ever hear it now. I can’t do it.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks. There’s songs stuck in all the nooks and crannies of my brain. Some blocked out, some hidden in places I can’t quite recall, and some are locked up in safety deposit boxes and the keys thrown away. If I dare go nosing around up there I might find a few more to share. We’ll see.
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