My parents are young. I mean, really young. When I was born, my mom was 18 and my dad was 20. So, growing up my parents were listening to some pretty decent music. I was surrounded by Zeppelin, The Beatles, The Stones, Alice Cooper, Bowie -On my dads side. My mom listened to Michael Jackson, Blondie and the pop music of the day.
Of all of that music, the first song that I really adopted as a "favorite" was Centerfold by J Geils Band. Maybe it's the melody on the keys, the use of the "na, na, na's," that got to me. I do know that I had no idea what a "centerfold" was yet. I think my parents and there friends thought it was hilarious that a 5 year old was singing about such a topic.
What's your first song?
"The Lion Sleeps tonight". Must have been in 1972, the song was already 11 years old. I remember thinking the song had something to do with Lego windows. I can understand where the "windows" part of my thinking came from, but I can't fathom why I thought it had anything to do with Lego. Maybe I was just really into Lego. I also remember that once I started listening to the words in songs, I was disgusted that all of them were about love. I complained to my parents, much to their amusement.
Just read some details of Lego history. A little hard to interpret. This website implies that they weren't released in the USA till 1973, but the Lego timeline says that by 1966, Lego was available in 46 countries. I imagined they were imported to the US early on, but started building them in 1973 in the USA. They were introduced to much of the world at the New York 1964 World's Fair. I was there, by the way, but don't remember anything.
That's quite the falsetto, I wouldn't have pictured it coming out of that human. I wonder how many times he has sang that in his life?
my mom had it on tape. edit: Actually, fun story - When I first started driving, I used my dad's truck. It was a hardcore base model - standard transmission, and a tape deck. I think he paid extra for the air conditioning, but that was it. Because there was no cd player, I ended up raiding my parent's old tape collection. I got into Vivaldi, Billy Joel, and Dire Straits during this period - it was essentially when music stopped being background noise and started being something i cared intensely about. I played my dad's Dire Straits tape until it was easily a half-step flat and didn't run properly anymore. I still think Sultans of Swing has the best, most tasteful drumming i've ever heard in my life.
I was just at a work function and found out that a guy I work with's brother-in-law is the drummer (or one of the drummers) for Dire Straits. Pretty cool.
oh lord Honestly Will is actually pretty good when it comes to spittin.
I just bite it It's for the look I don't light it" is possibly the most 90s thing anyone could say in a hiphop song, though. Also Nile Rodgers produced that song, which is awesome."Ciga-cigar right from Cuba-Cuba
One of my first memories is of sitting in the backseat of my moms car, in the middle of summer, eating mcdonald's french fries and hearing Eddie Rabbitt's "Drivin my life away" on the radio. I love that memory because so much of it is a blur. I only have essences of the moment. My legs getting hot from the leather seats soaking in the sun, the salt on my fingers, my brother in the front seat, and that catchy chorus. Ooohh, I'm Drivin my life away, lookin for a better day, for me
Walk of Life - Dire Straits. I was obsessed with that song. I heard it on the radio, but because this was the 80s there was no internet to look it up and figure out who sang it. So it took a couple years before I finally figured out who sang it. Then I bought the tape, and I listened to that shit so much. I still love that song.
You know how you can go years without considering something and then, BAM it gets mentioned several times in one day/week? That's been Dire Straits for me of late. A guy at work let me know that his brother in law is their drummer and then they've been mentioned several times now on Hubski this week. Dire Straits everywhere! Walk of Life is a fantastic song. When I was a kid, my uncle played the keyboard line for me on his hammond organ and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Then he played Van Halen's Jump and I knew it was the coolest thing ever.
Time to make all of you feel old: For me, it was the first greatest hits album for the Barenaked Ladies. Or more specifically, Enid. I don't really have much of a story behind it.
BNL's greatest hits was my high school experience.
People used to tell me that my voice sounded like the lighter haired guy from BNL. I hated hearing that, because I can't stand that band. Edit: whenever I think of that band all I hear is the lyric, "chickity-China, the Chinese chicken." - Barf.
not everything they did was crap, but most of their popular stuff was.
I knew people whose taste I respect that were in to them well before they were "big," so I have to assume you are right. What are some tracks of theirs you dig?
some personal favourites: Old Apartment Call and Answer Lovers In a Dangerous TIme, a Bruce Cockburn cover which is frankly superior to the original What a Good Boy I don't think these will necessarily change your mind, but they will hopefully show you they were more than just a one-trick pony. Bonus - Another Canadian band known for funny songs exercising their serious side.
Early Beatles because my parents were squares and thought Lennon became a Satanist after Yellow Submarine. The Temptations because my parents hated black people and it was my first attempt to derail my white supremacist upbringing. The Charlie Daniels Band because I was raised in The South and that Satan was OK to sing about losing.
I too come from The South and loved The Devil Went Down to Georgia. A bit later Christian Death or The Electric Hellfire Club might have been my introduction to underground music. They were for a lot of us. Nothing cooler than Old Scratch if you're a kid in the south just starting to realize there's a lot to hate about it.
I bought Skinny Puppy's vivisect vi purely because the album cover was badass. After all, it worked with pink floyd's "dark side of the moon." That's right, kids: if you grew up in the sticks, without a record store, music was purchased unheard, mail order, because the odds of your parents driving you an hour to the nearest Hastings were slim indeed. Then I moved to Washington and bought the new Front Line Assembly at the grocery store. I teared up on the spot.
First I can remember jamming out to on the way to Grandma's Oh and here's the first single I ever bought with my lawnmowing pay
a few years later, I remember hearing this on the radio: and feverishly saving the $7.99 from my paper route to buy the album on cassette tape: In my haste and excitement at the record store in the mall (the what in the what?) I bought the wrong CD: which ended up being amazing because I loved this album as much more than the first one I intended to buy. Favorite track from this album: It was a few more years before I realized Squeeze had several big hits which I had NEVER HEARD. ahhh youth.
Everclear - Everything to Everyone This whole album, actually. It hit... extremely close to home for me as a kid, to the point that I can identify with every song in some deep way at multiple points in my life. My father was an abusive alcoholic, so I felt I didn't have a father, or fantasized about not having one and having the privilege of wondering if I'd be better off with one. The poverty he sang about made me feel less alienated in the hyper-rich area I lived in, and one of the loves of my life, jackdanielswife, is my Amphetamine. I can tell you a story about my life for every song on that album. And I actually did just that, to Art. I saw him at a solo concert and we had a chance to sit down and talk. He was ever more welcoming and understanding and wise than my already high expectations I set. It was one of the most cathartic experiences of my life. I still can't believe with everyone else around us and all he had going on, he took the time to chat with a kid that idolizes him.
As a pre-schooler, I noticed, like mike that all adult songs seemed to be about love. I couldn't figure that out. In the 1960s, when anti-war songs were being played about revolution and war and not love, it was noticeable. Note: Eve of Destruction, Buffy Ste. Marie's "Universal Soldier" and so on. But in the 1950s, every song seemed to be about love. Here's one I remember hearing on the a.m. radio. My mom is cooking or doing dishes and I'm playing with paper dolls.
I was in Target with my mom and She made a comment about the Beatles as we walked past the CD section. I asked her to buy the 1 album. She did and I immediately loved Help.
i dont remember, but i have seen video footage of me, at 2, dancing to this:
all that said, i like doug e fresh 'the show' as my first love.
Bucks Fizz, because my grandparents' gardener's daughter, who occasionally babysat my cousins and me, was really into them. It was really exciting being able to sing the lyric "I light a cigarette" as cigarettes are obviously very grown up, forbidden fruit items when you're about seven years old. Even before this time, I remember singing Tight Fit's "Fantasy Island" with kids at infant school (age 4-7):
I listened to a lot of pop radio growing up in Detroit. Both the lilly white and the domestic afro pop stuff. My parents divorced when I was six and the kids of most divorced parents get dragged to all the booring stuff that they would have avoided if the other parent was around to watch them. Hours and hours of riding around in my mom's beige Chevette listening to pop radio. I loved MJ, Prince, Madonna and Cindy Lauper by name. Loved many songs who's artist I didn't know at the time. One of my earliest memories is staring at eye level to my dads glowing amplifier and record player watching "There Goes Rhyming Simon" spin as Codachrome played. I would guess that I was about three years old. Loved that album then, still love it now. I can also remember always wanting my parents to play Al Stewart's album "Year of the Cat" and Cat Stevens album "Tea for the Tillerman." I really liked Stevie Wonders "Songs in the Key of Life." Don't know what's wrong with my kid, she mostly wants to hear Frankie Valley.
Probably Bohemian Rhapsody. I saw Wayne's World at a sensitive age.
Can't find a stream of it anywhere, but:
