Happy New Year! Here’s hoping we can reclaim our democracy this year. We sure are trying, so if you live outside of the United States and are wondering what the heck is going on in this country, so are we … and we’re doing our best to keep up with the daily chaos. There are more of us who are pro-democracy, pro-international order and peacekeeping, and pro-rule of law, but you may not be able to hear us over the constant propaganda. Just know that we’re here and we’re working on it.
Anyhoo … with that out of the way, I wanted to take a trip down memory lane, revisiting some of the music from my youth (outside of Duran Duran and Ultravox).
Hubby and I enjoy scouring thrift shops and Half Price Books for used CDs so we can add music to our already sizable collection. As I have mentioned here before, I rip the CDs to digitize them and add music to our phones, which is a convenient way to carry a lot of music. Plus, we have the benefit of owning the CDs as a backup, in case something happens to the digital versions.
Recently, we found a copy of David Bowie’s “Changesbowie” album. It’s a compilation of many of Bowie’s well-known songs.
Back in high school, I bought my first and only Bowie album before this one. It’s been a minute, as the kids would say.
I didn’t have very many vinyl records in high school because they were expensive and I didn’t have a lot of money. I had several Duran Duran albums and a couple Ultravox albums, plus A-Ha, Mickey Mouse Club (I believe this was my first album), and Shaun Cassidy (probably my second album).
Shaun made an appearance during one of our thrift shop forays when I ran across a copy of the album I used to own.
The album was in rough shape and I wasn’t looking for vinyl, so I left Shaun at the thrift store. Let someone else be reminded of the music of their youth.
Back to Bowie. We found the “Changesbowie” CD at Half Price Books. I was surprised at how many of the songs I knew, even though I only had one Bowie album in the past. Out of the 18 songs on the CD, I knew 17.
My favorite song from that high school album was on “Changesbowie” – “Ashes to Ashes.” I remember playing that repeatedly, along with “Fashion,” but, otherwise, I didn’t really get Bowie’s music at the time.
After looking at a discography of Bowie’s music on Wikipedia, I pinpointed the album I had purchased based on the date, these songs, and the album cover. It was “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” and it was released at the midpoint of Bowie’s 26 studio albums. (Okay, here’s a spooky shiver. As I’m reading the Wikipedia page on Bowie’s discography, I see that his death date was January 10, 2016, exactly 10 years ago today. I had no idea what day he died or that it had been that long.)
Why did I buy “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” if I wasn’t really into Bowie’s music?
Theater kids. (Or theatre kids, if you’re really into the thee-AH-ta).
I performed in a couple of plays in 9th and 10th grade. I was the maid in Tom Jones and played Moth in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was a combination of a couple of small parts.
I was a quiet, mousey kid, who was more comfortable painting backdrops than being in front of an audience, so I wasn’t one of the handful of really cool theater kids. These kids loved Bowie and I wanted to fit in, so I bought a Bowie album.
Ah, high school. So much insecurity and angst.
When I realized I wasn’t into Bowie’s music at that time, I didn’t bother buying any more albums. I had a strong enough sense of self that I wasn’t going to let the theater kids dictate what I did with my limited cash.
Over the years, Bowie’s music was ubiquitous enough that I heard a lot of it and grew to like it. Thankfully, our tastes evolve and expand as we age.
Time to jump to another band from my youth … The Psychedelic Furs. Erik and I saw them in Boston in October. At the time, I mentioned that I recognized most of the songs they played during the concert, even though I didn’t own any of their albums or follow their career.
The musical milieu in the 1980s and 1990s was more cohesive than it is now, with most of us teenagers listening to the same Top 40 radio stations. If a band had a hit, it was played over and over on the radio and the majority of kids heard it. Now, the music scene is fractured into an endless number of possible channels across the internet, radio, and live performances, with the internet serving up music to each individual based on algorithms.
After seeing the Psych Furs in concert, we’ve been playing one of their more recent videos frequently on YouTube. It’s called “Wrong Train” and it’s all in black and white and very arty.
Over the holiday, Erik wanted to play around with writing a song, but he didn’t have any ideas for lyrics and figured he would just write something without lyrics. After listening to “Wrong Train” one evening, he woke in the morning with a draft of lyrics for a song.
Erik would not claim he is a musician, that he just dabbles for his enjoyment, but I am truly not a musician. I can plunk out “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and a few bars of “Ode to Joy” on a keyboard, but that’s it, and I frequently fumble those.
Imagine my surprise when after watching “Wrong Train” and the video for “Heaven” by The Psychedelic Furs, I woke up with fragments of lyrics for a song running through my head.
What strange sorcery is this?
Neither of our song ideas had any resemblance to songs by the Psych Furs, but somehow revisiting the music of a band from our youth struck an inspirational chord in us.
Y’all, I’d highly recommend revisiting the music of your youth to see what memories and inspiration it dredges up. I’m so glad I found David Bowie and The Psychedelic Furs again.
What bands would you like to revisit?
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