After finishing Ready Player One this week, I thought I'd leave the more or less chronological order of my Tunesday songs to make a general post about nostalgia and what lingers after all these years. In order to do that, I'm going to put up two songs that define slightly different times. For me, I've chosen 1985, and for Dave, Nineteen Somethin'.
1985
(Scherr, Mitchell / Allen, John) Performed by Bowling for Soup
Woohoo
Woohoo
Debbie just hit the wall
She never had it all
One Prozac a day
Husbands a CPA
Her dreams went out the door
When she turned twenty four
Only been with one man
What happened to her plan?
She was gonna be an actress
She was gonna be a star
She was gonna shake her ass
On the hood of White Snake's car
Her yellow SUV, is now the enemy
Looks at her average life
And nothing has been alright
Since Bruce Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on M-T-V
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she's uncool
'Cause she's still preoccupied
With 19, 19, 1985
Woohoo
(1985)
Woohoo
She's seen all the classics
She knows every line
Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink
Even Saint Elmo's Fire
She rocked out to Wham!
Not a big Limp Bizkit fan
Thought she'd get a hand
On a member of Duran Duran
Where's the mini-skirt made of snake skin
And who's the other guy singing in Van Halen
When did reality become T.V.
What ever happened to sitcoms, game shows
(On the radio was)
Bruce Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on M-T-V
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she's uncool
'Cause she's still preoccupied
With 19, 19, 1985
Woohoo
She hates time make it stop
When did Motley Crue become classic rock?
And when did Ozzy become an actor?
Please make this
Stop! Stop! Stop!
And bring back
Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on M-T-V
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she's uncool
'Cause she's still preoccupied
1985
Bruce Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on M-T-V
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she's uncool
But she's still preoccupied
With 19, 19, 1985
(Scherr, Mitchell / Allen, John) Performed by Bowling for Soup
Woohoo
Woohoo
Debbie just hit the wall
She never had it all
One Prozac a day
Husbands a CPA
Her dreams went out the door
When she turned twenty four
Only been with one man
What happened to her plan?
She was gonna be an actress
She was gonna be a star
She was gonna shake her ass
On the hood of White Snake's car
Her yellow SUV, is now the enemy
Looks at her average life
And nothing has been alright
Since Bruce Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on M-T-V
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she's uncool
'Cause she's still preoccupied
With 19, 19, 1985
Woohoo
(1985)
Woohoo
She's seen all the classics
She knows every line
Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink
Even Saint Elmo's Fire
She rocked out to Wham!
Not a big Limp Bizkit fan
Thought she'd get a hand
On a member of Duran Duran
Where's the mini-skirt made of snake skin
And who's the other guy singing in Van Halen
When did reality become T.V.
What ever happened to sitcoms, game shows
(On the radio was)
Bruce Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on M-T-V
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she's uncool
'Cause she's still preoccupied
With 19, 19, 1985
Woohoo
She hates time make it stop
When did Motley Crue become classic rock?
And when did Ozzy become an actor?
Please make this
Stop! Stop! Stop!
And bring back
Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on M-T-V
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she's uncool
'Cause she's still preoccupied
1985
Bruce Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on M-T-V
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she's uncool
But she's still preoccupied
With 19, 19, 1985
1985 was the year that I graduated from high school, so it totally feeds my tendency towards magical thinking to have had a hit song released about such a seminal year in my life. The pop culture references were all there for me in this song (I totally rocked out to Wham!, was not a big Limp Bizkit fan...) and it was very cool for me to be able to turn it up (on the radio of my minivan no less) and have my girls sing along with me. It must have been very cool for them, a few years later, to finally both be in high school themselves and sing out the line, "Her two kids in high school, they tell her that she's uncool" (you're uncool Mom! Uncool!). That's just the way it goes; the circle of life.
On the other hand, I heard the following song on Mallory's country music station for the first time a few weeks ago (even though it was apparently a huge hit when it came out), and after I sent the video to Dave, he agreed it could be his theme song:
Nineteen Somethin'
(Lee, David/Du Bois, Chris) Performed by Mark Wills
Saw Star Wars at least eight times
Had the Pac-Man pattern memorized
And I've seen the stuff they put inside
Stretch Armstrong (yeah)
I was Roger Staubach in my backyard
Had a shoebox full of baseball cards
And a couple of Evil Knievel scars
On my right arm
I was a kid when Elvis died
And my momma cried
It was nineteen seventy somethin'
And the world that I grew up in
Farrah Fawcett hairdo days
Bell bottoms and eight track tapes
Lookin' back now I can see me
Oh man, did I look cheesy
But I wouldn't trade those days for nothin'
Oh it was nineteen seventy-somethin'
It was the dawning of a new decade
We got our first microwave
Dad broke down and
Finally shaved them old sideburns off
I took the stickers off of my Rubik's Cube
Watched M-TV all afternoon
My first love was Daisy Duke
And them cut-off jeans
Space Shuttle fell out of the sky
And the whole world cried
It was nineteen eighty-somethin'
And the world that I grew up in
Skatin' rinks and black Trans-Ams
Big hair and parachute pants
And lookin' back now I can see me
Oh man, did I look cheesy
I wouldn't trade those days for nothin'
Oh it was nineteen eighty-somethin'
Now I've got a mortgage and an SUV
But all this responsibility
Makes me wish
Sometimes
That it was nineteen eighty-something
And the world that I grew up in
Skatin' rinks and black Trans-Ams
Big hair and parachute pants
And lookin' back now I can see me
Oh man, did I look cheesy
I wouldn't trade those days for nothin'
Oh it was nineteen eighty-something
Nineteen seventy-something
Oh, it was nineteen somethin'
(Lee, David/Du Bois, Chris) Performed by Mark Wills
Saw Star Wars at least eight times
Had the Pac-Man pattern memorized
And I've seen the stuff they put inside
Stretch Armstrong (yeah)
I was Roger Staubach in my backyard
Had a shoebox full of baseball cards
And a couple of Evil Knievel scars
On my right arm
I was a kid when Elvis died
And my momma cried
It was nineteen seventy somethin'
And the world that I grew up in
Farrah Fawcett hairdo days
Bell bottoms and eight track tapes
Lookin' back now I can see me
Oh man, did I look cheesy
But I wouldn't trade those days for nothin'
Oh it was nineteen seventy-somethin'
It was the dawning of a new decade
We got our first microwave
Dad broke down and
Finally shaved them old sideburns off
I took the stickers off of my Rubik's Cube
Watched M-TV all afternoon
My first love was Daisy Duke
And them cut-off jeans
Space Shuttle fell out of the sky
And the whole world cried
It was nineteen eighty-somethin'
And the world that I grew up in
Skatin' rinks and black Trans-Ams
Big hair and parachute pants
And lookin' back now I can see me
Oh man, did I look cheesy
I wouldn't trade those days for nothin'
Oh it was nineteen eighty-somethin'
Now I've got a mortgage and an SUV
But all this responsibility
Makes me wish
Sometimes
That it was nineteen eighty-something
And the world that I grew up in
Skatin' rinks and black Trans-Ams
Big hair and parachute pants
And lookin' back now I can see me
Oh man, did I look cheesy
I wouldn't trade those days for nothin'
Oh it was nineteen eighty-something
Nineteen seventy-something
Oh, it was nineteen somethin'
That's Dave up there, of course, in the Elvis jumpsuit, beside his 1974 Dodge Dart with its custom plates that read: 70S GUY. Because that's who he is -- a 70s guy through and through -- and even though he's only two years older than I am, he identifies way more with the 70s than with the 80s (but it's pretty cool that the Mark Wills song covers both decades for him). Dave remembers the first moon landing (while I was only a toddler at the time), he recently cajoled Kennedy and me into watching both Smokey and the Bandit and Every Which Way But Loose with him (and, my gawd, those movies don't hold up, as much as he insists that he still thinks they're fun), and he actually has Billy Don't be a Hero on his ipod (I would love to see what Dave would come up with for his own Tunesday reminiscences, but on the other hand, he kind of lives it every day).
Dave is way more nostalgic than I am -- I would even say he's way more sentimental, which is slightly different -- and that's not a bad thing; you gotta love a guy who thinks he grew up at the right time. I, on the other hand, thought at the time that the 80s were a cultural wasteland: the music wasn't as cool as old 70s rock; movies were cheesy; fashion was bizarre. That's what made Ready Player One such a strange read for me: you can cram in all these old references, but that still doesn't make them cool. And yet...Bowling for Soup got it just right: Once the 80s are compared to what came after -- when did reality become TV, and who let Ozzy Osborne lead the trend? -- it's easy to recognise what was fun and good about my own experiences. Where is my miniskirt made of snakeskin? Woohoo!
One thing that both songs have in common is the idea that the singer might want to "bring back" 1985 or "wish that it was" 1970-something, and I certainly don't think that way. I had plenty of fun as a teenager, but plenty of typical bad times too: who would want to be that powerless ever again? If I could have frozen time, it would have been when I was 23 -- the year Dave and I got married -- because I was totally free and happy and powerful; the perfect blend of enough money, lots of laughs, and no real responsibility. But if I was 23 forever, I wouldn't have my beautiful girls and all the love and laughs that taking on responsibility for them has brought me. Were I to freeze time right now -- while I still have them with me for a while longer -- who knows what I'd be missing out on?
It's fun to hear a favourite old song on the radio -- I'm the first to turn it up and sing out loud -- and it's also fun to hear new songs that remind us of the past, but I'm all about looking forward. No one likes an Uncle Rico.
One thing that both songs have in common is the idea that the singer might want to "bring back" 1985 or "wish that it was" 1970-something, and I certainly don't think that way. I had plenty of fun as a teenager, but plenty of typical bad times too: who would want to be that powerless ever again? If I could have frozen time, it would have been when I was 23 -- the year Dave and I got married -- because I was totally free and happy and powerful; the perfect blend of enough money, lots of laughs, and no real responsibility. But if I was 23 forever, I wouldn't have my beautiful girls and all the love and laughs that taking on responsibility for them has brought me. Were I to freeze time right now -- while I still have them with me for a while longer -- who knows what I'd be missing out on?
It's fun to hear a favourite old song on the radio -- I'm the first to turn it up and sing out loud -- and it's also fun to hear new songs that remind us of the past, but I'm all about looking forward. No one likes an Uncle Rico.
