My Life: The Soundtrack*

So if you were listing the songs that should make it on your "all time" soundtrack, what would they be, and why? Not just the songs you currently like/love/hate, but the ones that have meant something to you for a long time? Mine follow. In no particular order.

Don't You Forget About Me: Simple Minds
This song is important to me for so many reasons. Any time it comes on the radio, I must turn it up very loudly and sing it equally loudly. Funnily enough, I don't own a copy of it (something I ought to rectify). The reason I love this song is simple-- when I was a teen, for some reason, many people always said I looked like Molly Ringwald. (I don't think I did-- it was just that I had red hair and freckles). The first couple of times, it was sort of cool. But then when I got it for the millionth time, it was old. But it sort of led to a lifelong obsession I have with identifying "what celebrity the person I just met looks like". Which I once saw on Oprah as a good way to be a better eyewitness to a crime (what celebrity did the guy jacking your purse look most like?) But aside from the celebrity fixation, which is a sort of lame reason for liking a song, really, I just like the words. "I'll be along, dancing, you know it baby. Tell me your troubles and doubts".... etc. etc.

The Ballad of Dorothy Parker: Prince
I think I love this song for two reasons. One, it's a Prince song very few people know about and it's got a cool drum line. Two, it's about Dorothy Parker, who I think is one of the wittiest, funniest, most amazingly strong yet full of pain person I've ever read about. I did an interpretation of her short story "The Waltz" in high school dramatic interpretation. It (my performance) wasn't very good. But I still love the woman who wrote "one more drink and I'll be under the host" and this lovely poem:

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

I have no idea if the song really refers to the real life Dorothy or someone else. But the Dorothy in Prince's song is very witty. So I choose to think there is a connection. And I love the line "whoever's calling, can't be as cute as you".

Killer Queen: Queen
I adore Queen. I really love it in Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett's book Good Omens when he says something like "all CD's, if left alone long enough, eventually turn into the Greatest Hits of Queen" and then hears things like Queen's Symphony Number Five & Mozart's "Another One Bites the Dust"... a hybrid of Beethoven & Freddie Mercury. This song has all the elements I adore-- the line about champagne, the drag queen inspired hand gestures I feel compelled to give while listening to it. How did anyone ever doubt Freddie Mercury's sexuality, back in the day? I don't get it. (My quoting of Gaiman is probably totally off. Read his book and you'll get it right).

Wonderful Tonight: Eric Clapton
This has got to be the all-time best romantic song in the world. And it is my hubby's & my "song". Mostly because he's always drinking more than me and needing to be taken home and put to bed. And he thinks I'm gorgeous at eight in the morning with sleep goo in the corners of my eyes and bad breath. He's a crazy, misguided man, but I love him.

In Your Eyes: Peter Gabriel
Duh! Cause in Say Anything, John Cusack holds up that boom box outside her window! I don't think it needs any more explanation than that, do you?

Hot For Teacher: Van Halen
When I was young, I used to tell men I was picking up that I wanted to be the teacher that students thought was hot. That they had fantasies about. When it actually seemed to happen (when a cute student, last semester I taught, gave me cow eyes all the time) it was actually sort of creepy & scary. But it was a good line back in the day.

Add it Up & Kiss Off: Violent Femmes
Lara Lowry & I, in high school, spent a lot of time in her cool car (a black Nissan 286 or something like that, which she wrecked during her senior and my junior year, with me in it, leaving me with lasting back pain).... memorizing these songs. And to this day, when either comes on played by a cover band at a bar I'm in, I cannot help but dance with that head banging motion that makes an old woman like me need a visit to the chiropractor the next day. And if you don't like it, you know what you can do. (Just kiss off into the air). Once, some teens who had invaded the bar/restaurant that we frequented and sang one of these (I think it was Kiss Off) really well, back when the neo-punk thing first started raising its ugly head, and they did a good job. Afterwards I told them they did well-- and the lead one said "Yeah, my mom really likes this kind of music." Little brat. I should have punched him. Now THAT'S punk.

Superfreak: Rick James
When I was a pre-teen, me and my friend who lived near the trailer park where I lived (I forget her name-- Michelle? Heather? Ashley? I can see her face, but her name escapes me) used to go up to the store to get snacks (for me, Dr. Pepper and those red Dolly Madison cake things) while carrying her big giant boom box (usually perched on her shoulder) listening to this song. We also liked 1984 by Van Halen, but Superfreak sticks better. I'm fairly certain the ideas in the song warped me forever, because I'd much rather be a Superfreak than a nice girl. And after looking up the link, I'm really embarrassed that I've been singing a lyric all wrong for many years. But I'm not telling you which one it is, nor what I sang wrong.

I mean. Back in my day we didn't have the internet to look up song lyrics with. We had to play the song over and over and over again. And those singers really need to learn to enunciate.

There are a lot more songs that could go on this list. But I think I'll make this a continuing thing and this'll just be a start.

*idea via Feministe, and The Green Fairy