Tag: music

Throwback Music Memories

Throwback Music Memories

Something of a music aficionado/savant, my husband remembers hearing rock songs on the radio as early as age 6. I didn’t lose my musical virginity until about age 11, with the simultaneous purchase of the Journey “Escape” and Foreigner “4” albums. Today you can’t turn on the radio (AM/FM or Sirius) – at least in the Phoenix area – without being inundated with Journey, particularly “Don’t Stop Believing.” That song has moved from one of my lifetime favorites to my list of “I’d Be Happy to Never Hear It Again.”

John and I don’t watch a lot of network TV, but we have tuned in to the music contest shows, most notably The Voice, over the years since we’ve been together. I don’t have the technical music terms to describe why I like or don’t like particular songs or performances, but when I say “It’s too pointy” or “She really sounded off tonight,” John knows exactly what I mean and tells me I have a good ear for a non-musician.

The other night, The Voice featured a guest performance by Michael Bublé. He has a nice enough voice – God bless him and the people who enjoy him – but after the first verse, I think I might have been snoring. That old crooner style is the some of the most boring music I’ve ever heard. I’m no fan of hip-hop, but I’d take it any day over Bublé, Harry Connick, Jr., and even Seth McFarlane’s attempt to mimic Sinatra. Just days prior, I’d spent the weekend listening to a host of mostly local rock bands at an annual arts festival. (I snoozed through the Phoenix Ukulele Club’s version of “Frosty the Snowman” and other traditional carols.) The highlight for me was a punk version of the Christmas classic, “Feliz Navidad.”

This got me to wondering how much of my music taste is inherent – and how much of it was influenced by the happenstance of the music I was exposed to. I grew up in the ’80s when “alternative rock” was still a relatively new concept, and to this day I still prefer UK artists like U2, Sting, New Order, the Cranberries, and the Cure over almost any other kind of music. But maybe if I’d grown up in the ’40s, I’d have quite enjoyed that crooner stuff I find so distasteful today. Usually able to tune out commercials, I noticed yesterday that a particular investment bank is using a song from my youth in its newest TV spots – “One Thing Leads to Another,” by The Fixx – which means they’re definitely targeting people in my age range, and it’s working.

We went out to breakfast yesterday for my husband’s birthday, and as we were pulling into the driveway on our return, I heard the first few bars of one of my favorite ’80s songs, “Melt with You,” by Modern English. John turned the engine off and the music quickly died. “Awwww,” I whined, quietly.

“What?” he asked, concerned.

“It was ‘Melt with You.’ One of my favorites.”

“Well, I’m sure with the push of a button or two, you can hear it momentarily in the comfort of the house,” he chirped. “It’s not like you have to sit around with your cassette player ready, just waiting for it to come on. Kids Eric’s age would never believe what we used to do to get our music.”

tape recorder ready

I laughed so hard at that memory. If you’re older than, say, 45 and you grew up in an American city, you can probably relate. Fortunately, every radio station had DJs back then, and the good ones would announce the songs they planned to play next, so you’d have time to get your blank tape situated in the cassette deck, finger poised to press the RECORD button. Even so, every mix tape inevitably had a song that was missing the first bars or one with the idiot DJ talking over the music. Still, it was cheaper and more convenient that getting yourself to the record store and plunking down $7 or $8 for a cassette that held an album’s worth of music when all you wanted was the hit single.

I know nothing of my son’s taste in music. I feel like those old people we used to see in comic strips and sitcoms – the ones who complain about the music tastes of “those youngsters.” Here’s a screenshot of the MUSIC tab from Eric’s Facebook page.

eric's music

Seriously, I’ve never heard of any of them. I know his dad and I share a preference for the Coffeehouse acoustic station on Sirius – and Eric makes fun of it every time the two of them drive together. One thing is sure: music tastes and formats change. I’m still grateful every day for being married to an incredibly talented musician who constantly brings music and song into our house – especially since we’re pretty much on the same page in terms of what we like.

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Laura Orsini is an author, speaker, and consultant who coaches other authors to make and market exceptional books that change the world for the better. She is birthmother to Eric, who recently graduated from college and began his engineering career. Their adoption has been open for the better part of Eric’s life. She continues to toy with the idea that these posts will one day become a book. In the meantime, you can learn about the first book from her brand new publishing company, Panoply Publishing.

What’s at the Top of Your Lifetime Playlist?

What’s at the Top of Your Lifetime Playlist?

Being married to a musician, I probably spend a lot more time listening to, watching, and learning about music than the average non-musician. It helps that I’ve always loved many kinds of music, even though the extent of my musical training and skill ran to a six-week course in the recorder back in second or third grade at St. Agnes Catholic School. I think we learned “Baa-Baa Black Sheep” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” The boys used the recorders as swords – I’m not sure what ever happened to mine.

So when John tries to explain using this chord instead of that one or how Dave Nachmanoff doesn’t use traditional tuning for a lot of his songs, it’s mostly lost on me. He tells me, however, that I have a pretty good grasp of sound for a non-musician, even though I don’t know the musical terms to precisely convey what I mean. When we’re watching those singing competition shows and I say, “It’s not round enough” or “It’s very tinny,” he knows exactly what I mean, and usually agrees with me.

My mom’s family was very musical. I wish I knew what happened to it, but there was a black-and-white photo of her with a number of her 11 siblings, each standing around a tree holding a musical instrument. My mom held a violin – but I never heard her talk about playing it, so that may have just been a pose for the picture. Back at about the same time I was tinkering with the recorder, my Aunt Molly (Modesta) made an album of Spanish songs of which my mother was both very proud and very envious. That, like the photo, disappeared into the wind with my mother’s illness. She spilled stuff on or broke or tore up or otherwise destroyed most of the mementos I – and, presumably Eric and his family – would cherish today.

My niece, Samantha, has quite a vocal talent. Corina and I thought for some time that she would study music and perform professionally, but after high school, she gave up singing entirely, except to occasionally sing with her church group. She sang two songs at my father’s funeral – and we wanted her to sing at my mom’s memorial Mass five years later, but she refused. Cori finally cajoled her into it, and she sang “Ave Maria,” after which all of my mother’s relatives clapped, like it was a recital. I thought the priest was going to have a heart attack. I really wanted her to sing at our wedding reception, but that didn’t happen. John’s stepmom, Gayle, stepped in and did an amazing job covering U2’s “All I Want Is You.”

In spite of my father, who preferred silence to any sort of music, I have appreciated music from my earliest days. And, I have what I sometimes think of as a series of soundtracks from different eras of my life. I put those all together into a musical version of my life story for Eric this past Christmas. I vacillated about giving it to him, as it felt more than a little self-indulgent. Nevertheless, my history is his history, so I gambled that he would find it at least somewhat interesting. I won’t share the whole list here because it was a very personal gift to him. If this blog ever makes it into print as a book, I’ll reconsider. I will, however, give you my intro to Eric’s Playlist:

So the last time I heard “Forever Young” on the radio, it occurred to me that I might make you a “mix tape” of the songs that were important to me throughout my life – and as I put the playlist together (we actually recorded them on cassettes when I was your age), I started jotting notes about each song. My initial goal was to record the whole thing on an MP3 player for you so I could include these descriptive bits as audio recordings – but that became labor intensive, so I decided to move into the 21st century and do it the sensible way, with an iTunes playlist (or, more accurately, two iTunes playlists).

The songs are more or less in some attempt of chronological order. Some will seem weird to you, no doubt – but all played a key role in my growing up, development as a person, are things I just love, and/or are pieces of music I’ve shared with John. Maybe you’ll enjoy listening to them – maybe just reading about them. Either way, here we go.

  1. Rod Stewart – “Forever Young” –This song is the whole reason I made this playlist for you, Eric. Every time I hear it, I think of you. I’m not sure how well we will ever get to know each other, but I hope you have even a small understanding of how much you are loved and that I wish only the very best things in life for you.

Eric never commented on the playlist, so I have no idea what he thought of it. No matter – it was a wonderful walk down Memory Lane for me. I had a blast playing most of the 92 songs on it a few times each as I put the list together. I say “most” because I included music I didn’t especially like, if it was important for some reason.

So there you have it, the first of my promised posts created from randomly selected words. Still have Bravery and Caves to tackle as topics from the same writing prompt, so stay tuned!

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Laura Orsini is an author who works with other authors to help them make and market exceptional books that change the world for the better. She is birthmother to Eric, who is finishing college in Boston this summer. Their adoption has been open for the better part of Eric’s life. She continues to toy with the idea that these posts will one day become a book. In the meantime, you can learn about her novel in progress, Stan Finds Himself on the Other Side of the World.