What's Your Song?

Ever since reading Holly's post this week about music from the year you turned 18 I've been thinking about music and my own musical tastes. I've been on a sort of musical journey. I had a blast going through my own Top 20 from the year I turned 18. Even if you decide not to post your own list, it's a fun thing to do. You can check it out here.

The next thing I knew, Sybil had a post up that included Madonna's 'Material Girl' video. My son asked me today why I keep singing a Madonna song when I'm hardly her greatest fan. Yeah, lovely, thanks Sybil! Not even Cher's 'Tramps & Thieves', also Sybil's post, could knock the material girl out of my head.

Night before last TGILW and I took a trip down memory lane with the John Denver program on PBS. Discussing JD's music made me realize how much music from my past that I had listened to over this week, songs I hadn't thought of in years. You know how music is...some songs bring very specific memories back to us with vivid detail. Lots of memories popped into my head this week...concerts, places, people.

When TGILW and I met we didn't have a country western album between us. We went to see URBAN COWBOY with John Travolta and Debra Winger and the soundtrack from that movie was our first country western album. We now have lots of CW in our CD collection. We also have more than a dozen Broadway musical soundtracks, movie soundtracks, Frank Sinatra, Mob Hits I & II, jazz (Diana Krall anyone?), pop rock, classic rock, R&B, 40s swing music and even a couple CDs of meditation music. Very eclectic I'm happy to say.

Anyway, thinking about all this music made me think about "our song". You know that song you and your special someone have tagged as being just yours and having meaning to your relationship? Yep, THAT'S the song I'm talking about. Until I met TGILW I thought couples having a song was dumb. I think of myself as being a romantic and sentimental, but having a song was a little over the top even for me, but here I am telling you we have one. While I can't tell you the circumstances that the song came to be ours to protect the innocent, or the guilty as the case may be, I can share with you what the song is.

Drum roll please...LONGER THAN by Dan Fogelberg.

Now I have to tell you. I have a cassette tape with the song on it. It was played at my wedding and I have that taped as well, but other than that we hardly ever think about or play our song. I have heard a muzak version on an elevator or two over the years and that can just about kill any song. Anyway, TGILW has even been known to forget what it is. While he isn't the most romantic guy by a long shot, he does usually try to keep track of stuff like that just to keep himself out of the dog house.

The sad sorry state of affairs is that we've outgrown our song. The sentiment is okay. I mean who doesn't want their love to last longer than fish in the ocean or the stars up in the sky? Mr. Fogelberg's voice is beautiful and it's a very nice song, but it doesn't evoke any strong memory or emotional attachment for me any more. I'm thinking we've outgrown our song. So I was wondering, can a couple UN-song themselves? What do you think? Can we just say, that's not going to be our song any more? D-I-V-O-R-C-E our song? If a friend or family member happens to mention our song we can just say, "I'm sorry you are mistaken, we don't have a song...at least not any more. We and our song went our separate ways and everyone's the happier for it. The split was amicable and we remain friends."

Which brings me to the point of this whole thing. I was thinking about my parents and my strong memories and emotional attachment to their song. My Mom and Dad used to dance in our living room and every time their song would play my Mom would say, "This is our song" and my Dad would say, "This is our song? I don't remember deciding that this would be our song." Or words to that affect. My mom also would talk about how one of the reasons she married my Dad was because he was such a good dancer. TGILW and I dance in our living room, sometimes I talk about my parents and their song when we dance. It's a great song. Give a listen.

How about you? Got a special song or musical memory?

'Stardust' written by Hoagey Carmichael

Performed by Nat King Cole

John Denver

Last night on our local PBS station they were having one of their fund raisers and showing a concert to generate interest. Well actually it wasn't a concert it was sort of a musical documentary about John Denver. It was pretty interesting and there was alot of narrative in the program by John himself discussing how he came to write certain songs and what they meant.

After incredible popularity for many years many comedians and our fickle pop culture began to make fun of his cheerfulness and young cherubic features. As we know now he actually had some very deep valleys and battled depression over the years. While their are several opinions as to whether or not he committed suicide almost 10 years ago I was struck anew while watching this program how beautiful some of his songs and lyrics are. They are thoughtful and evocative. John Denver music was one of the things TGILW and I had in common when we met. It was the only music that we had dual sets of when we married.

His song Calypso about the boat Jacques Cousteau used to study the ocean was written to bring awareness about the beauty of our oceans and our responsibility to protect our planet. He was speaking about conservation and ecology way back in the 70s. He donated all the proceeds from Calypso to the Cousteau Society. Pretty cool.

At any rate it brought back many wonderful memories. I went with a bunch of girlfriends in 1975 to a concert at the brand spanking new Universal Amphitheater to see him. The sellout crowd was on their feet most of the night and it was the first time I was to experience thousands of people singing with an artist at the top of their lungs. Just a great time and a great memory.

In 1977 after my family had travelled through Colorado many times driving between New Mexico (where my Dad was stationed at the time) and Montana where my grandparents lived, I decided to move to Colorado Springs. I lived there for two and a half of the best years of my life. To this day my brothers say I moved there because I loved John Denver music. The reasons for moving there are many, but I can tell you the only reason I left was because I met this guy, fell in love and he had a great job in...OHIO!

Here's some John Denver for you. I chose a medely he did of some of his more popular songs back in 1992.