I loved the 1980s. I loved the hair, the clothes, the music. A decade ago I went to an 80s party. To prepare for it, I went to the Goodwill. I bought an entire outfit – tapered white with blue pinstriped jeans; a white, over-sized shirt; and a pale blue shoulder sweater. I was also able to acquire a crimping iron.
For $5, I was wearing an outfit that in the day would have cost $150! I was cool … and only 15 years too late!
It turns out not everyone thinks so fondly of my favorite decade.
A few years ago Kurt and I were up in San Francisco for a dance competition. We walked into a bar that night, and as soon as our drink order was filled, Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing came on. Everyone in the bar (including me!) except for Kurt sang along at the top of our lungs. I was in Heaven. Kurt was not. When I talked to him about it as we walked back to our respective hotels, his response was that he had already lived the 80s. Why would he want to relive them?
While my friend was down visiting, we went to see MixedTape.
Not only did I enjoy it because one of my high school classmates was in it (OMG!), but also because it was all 80s music. How could that be bad? Just ask DH2U. He was not a fan. I asked him about it at intermission, and he said it was all the music he had tried so hard to avoid while he was living through that time. WHAT?!?!? How could you not be bouncing in your seat wanting to belt out Billy Joel and Rick Springfield and Depeche Mode and Duran Duran and … and?
Okay, in reading all of this, I seem like crazy stuck in the past woman. I don’t sit around listening to this stuff all day … although I do still occasionally wear my speech team sweatshirt! These songs are my magic conjuring of a time where I perceive myself as happy, even though in reality I wasn’t all the time (or even most). It was my teenage angst time after all.
But this music was the first music that I chose to have playing. With most of the songs I have very specific memories of what was going on in my life at the time. Some of them were songs we sang on the speech bus on the way home from competitions (including altering lyrics so our coach wouldn’t make us turn off the radio). Some are the songs I called the radio station to request. Others were playing in the background as major events happened. They are the soundtrack to a sanitized version of my past.
So what songs bring back memories for you? What was your first album/cassette/8 track? (Mine was the GoGo’s Beauty and the Beat.)
Grown Up, Now What? 