Background Music

“Music is the soundtrack of your life.” ~ Dick Clark

September! It’s been a minute since my last blog past. I didn’t plan on taking a break. Lately I’m feeling the drive to write and research a novel I’m working on, so much of my attention has been wrapped up in that. Most of my current research is concentrated on the music industry, primarily from the 90s through the early 2000s. I feel less informed about this specific time period because back then I was preoccupied with babies and then busy school-aged children. That meant the background music was often Disney soundtracks and pop hits. I still remember the words to Spice Girls and a few boy band songs. And my grown children joke about remembering more 80s lyrics than they care to. Fair is fair.

While I’m not ready to share the plot specifics of the novel quite yet, I will say I’m having fun revisiting classic rock favourites and discovering fascinating tidbits of music trivia along the way. If you follow my Instagram stories, then it might make more sense now why I keep sharing music-related posts about rock band crushes and singer-songwriters I’ve long admired. I suppose, like many people during these troubling times, I’ve been living a little more inside of my head. Reflecting on and listening to music has kept me feeling grounded and warmly connected to memories of more carefree days.

My generation (and I feel about a hundred years old as I write that) forged tight relationships over sharing new record albums and dance moves in basement rec rooms. I’ve mentioned before that I’m the youngest in a large family. My eldest brother was sixteen when I was born, and the rest of my siblings all fall in line behind him, a year or so apart in age, with the closest to me being ten years older. My brothers used to tease me about being left on the doorstep as a baby and how they so generously took me in so I wouldn’t freeze to death because it was February. I went crying to my mom about it once and I still remember her response: “Do you really think we’d bring another kid inside this crowded household if you weren’t ours?” Point taken. So it meant I naturally entered that well-established and chaotic household of primarily teenagers by way of surprised parents, who were older than my friend’s parents. I didn’t know it at the time, but that broad age range greatly blessed me with a plethora of music experiences.

Before the older kids started moving out, I shared a bedroom with two sisters who were vastly different from each other, yet agreed on one important factor: The Beatles. Some of my earliest memories include giant wall posters of John, Paul, George and Ringo and the absolute conviction that their eyes were following me, so I’d better get dressed quickly behind the closet door! They were Team Paul and I was Team George because (wow those expressive eyebrows!) and he had the cheekiest smile. I spent many nights falling asleep to my sisters whisper-arguing while also harmonizing to Motown hits until our mother eventually stuck her head in the door to tell them to “cut it out”.

Down the hallway, my four brothers were squeezed into one bedroom with two sets of bunk beds that were so close together it was possible to jump from one top bunk to the other, which I did frequently and gleefully. They fascinated me because they were so much louder and wilder than my sisters, and their record collections clearly reflected that. I’m positive my deeply-rooted love of rock band music began in that very small room while listening to The Stones and hearing them trade insults, punch each there and then laugh it off. One brother with a gentler soul used to play Cat Stevens on repeat, and to this day hearing “Morning Has Broken” instantly lightens my mood.

My second eldest brother died when he was nineteen and I was four years old. The music and the laughter in our house disappeared for a very long time after that day. My memories of him are hazy, but I do remember his kindness and how sometimes he’d let me curl up with him on the mornings he was too sick to get out of bed to go to school. Many years later I heard “Unchained Melody”, The Righteous Brothers’ version, and my mind instantly connected the dots to my lost brother. At the time of his passing he was deeply in love with his high school sweetheart, and I wonder if perhaps that was their song, or maybe just his alone. It’s a tender, melancholy song. Today is his birthday and he would be turning seventy-three.

During the early 70s our household began to quickly downsize until only three of us kids remained. It was then that my parents decided to get rid of the ping pong table in the basement and turn our rec room into a more glamorous adult-friendly hangout. My dad built a very elaborate bar with mirrored shelves and colourful lights to illuminate the hard liquor bottles that lined them. Padded bench seats were built-in along the walls and speakers somehow got wired meticulously into posts and ceilings, long before surround sound existed. It was a rather strange thing to do because both of my parents rarely drank and Dad was the most unsociable one in the family. Regardless, for awhile they were downstairs until late most Saturday nights, laughing with friends, drinking out of cut glass crystal tumblers, smoking endless cigarettes and playing card games.

Dad spent countless hours taping a wide variety of music from our records onto his reel-to-reel tape recorder. Sometimes on weekend afternoons he’d play current hits like The Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar” in that basement barroom so that me and my friends could hold our own Kool-Aid dance parties. Ah, it was a great time to be a kid! Mom, who really loved to dance, finally had more free time to teach me how to jitterbug and hand-jive. I get my swooning fondness for crooners from my mother. She adored the Rat Pack, big band music, and she hero-worshipped Streisand–all of Barbra’s music and movies. My dad introduced me to the kind of country music that’s considered old-school now. The likes of Dolly, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride, just to name a few of the greatest country singers who ever lived.

During my early teen years, when I always seemed to be at odds with my dad because either my cut-offs were too short or my makeup was too heavy, music magically kept us connected. I would roll my eyes at his 8 track country cassettes and he’d ask me, “what good is music if the volume’s so high you can’t understand the words?” Still, we firmly agreed on this: ABBA and Fleetwood Mac were (and still are) sublime. I credit the iconic Rumours album for getting me through the painfully awkward junior high years.

The first concert I was allowed to attend with a group of friends and without a parent in sight was April Wine. I’m a Canadian girl, so I feel pretty nostalgic about April Wine. The most memorable concert of my youth was Supertramp’s 1979 Breakfast in America Tour at the Empire Stadium in Vancouver. I was sixteen and hadn’t even gone on a real date yet, but I reluctantly agreed to let a friend set me up on a blind date (double date) with her boyfriend’s cousin who managed to score four concert tickets. All that trouble, just so I could see Supertramp and hear “Take The Long Way Home” live with about 40,000 other people. He turned out to be a nice enough guy, but by then I already had my eye on someone else…a broody, sharp-witted boy of Scottish descent with long feathery layers in his dark hair, just like mine. He ended up being my first love, and in my mind he still looks exactly the same as he did when we broke up three years later at nineteen for the second and final time. That day I ran a very long way home after stubbornly refusing a ride, while trying to lose him as he followed me in his car until the moment I breathlessly reached my front door. For hours I played “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” over and over and over until I felt completely, irrevocably done with him.

That first serious boyfriend introduced me to Pink Floyd, punk rock, and Scottish singer Gerry Rafferty. (What an eclectic mix!) Hearing “Right Down The Line” immediately stuffs me back inside a time capsule along with Bonne Bell Lip Smackers (root beer was my favourite and always the hardest to find), Love’s Baby Soft perfume, Seafarer high waisted flares, and the even higher drama of angst-fuelled teenage love. If you ask me, the rock band that readily springs to mind from that era is Nazareth, and only because I swear every girl I knew at one time or another sobbed out her poor broken heart to “Love Hurts”. My personal blast-it-until-you-get-past-it rock anthem was Heart’s “Crazy on You”. The ah-mazing guitar intro to that song still makes my heart race in anticipation.

Dust off your shoulder pads because here comes the 80s! To be continued…

In case you fancy a listen, here are Youtube links to the music mentioned (or thought about) during the writing of this post. Have you ever noticed that back in the day song titles could be very long? I hope watching and listening to the videos is an uplifting experience. Please leave a comment to share some of your memorable classics!

I Want to Hold Your Hand – The Beatles

Stop! In the Name of Love – The Supremes

Paint It Black – The Rolling Stones

Morning Has Broken – Yusuf / Cat Stevens

Unchained Melody – The Righteous Brothers

Sugar, Sugar – The Archies

The Way We Were – Barbra Streisand

He Stopped Loving Her Today – George Jones

Dancing Queen – ABBA

Go Your Own Way – Fleetwood Mac

You Won’t Dance With Me – April Wine

Take The Long Way Home – Supertramp

Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me – Elton John

Comfortably Numb – Pink Floyd

Right Down The Line – Gerry Rafferty

Love Hurts – Nazareth

Crazy On You – Heart