Well, it only took me seven years, but this entry will be blog number ONE HUNDRED for this GochoGringo. And this entry should be one of the most GochoGringo of them all. One of my New Year's "Goals" was to write a little bit more in 2020, and I've already passed my total for 2019 (7). With this whole Coronavirus thing and being at home, I have even less excuses not to write.
It also leaves open time for other things. A few nights ago, I put on my "Relaxation" playlist while taking a shower, and when I got done, I felt like I wanted to just keep listening to music. Nothing else. Just listen and sing along. When's the last time you did that, for more than one or two songs? For me it had been years--music's always an accompaniment, not the main focus. And so I did. Sonia sang along if she knew the song, and didn't when she didn't: she's cool like that.
Anyway, what follows is a list of the songs I listened and sung along to that night, and what that song means to me, personally. You'll probably know some of them; very few will know all of them--maybe my compadre Karl Yeats. It's also going to be a very Spanglish entry!
I will link to each song on Youtube. I hope you click on one or two and sing along; or think of your own song, and find it and sing along with that one. Feel free to leave in the comments, here or on Facebook or Twitter, your own relationships to these and/or any other song you find meaningful. We all need a little something to get us through these crazy days. Why not music?
P.S. I started writing this, oh, ten or twelve days ago. It's long, so read it in more than one sitting (if you care to).
It took me longer than I thought it would. How do you explain a song? I don't think I figured it out. But I think Mathew Klein from Youtube comments did: "When I was a teenager I listened 'cause that's how I felt. Now I listen to feel that way again."
Enjoy!
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The first song to pop up after I was sitting on the couch was Garth Brooks'
"Much too Young (To Feel this Damned Old)". I hadn't heard the old bull riders' anthem in years and Garth is perfect sing-along music. He catches things in simple phrases that people like me need 10 pages to capture. "A worn out tape of Chris LeDieux/Lonely women and bad booze/Seem to be the only friends I've left at all". And I'm sure all of us have felt "much too young (to feel this damned old)". I know I have....
La voz sin par de Natalia Jiménez da embustible al segundo disco de La Quinta Estación, cuya mejor canción es "
Cartas". "Tal vez sea tarde para comprender/Que soy cómo soy y el mundo es cómo es". Este disco me lo prestó una de mis mejores amigas, Julie West, y me ayudó a sobrevivir un par de duros años escolares....
When we were young, my siblings and I would sleep on the floor on hot nights with an open south window. My brother went through a phase where he listened to a dubbed copy of
Kiss: Smashes, Thrashes and Hits, and each night he would insist that "
Beth" was the prettiest song ever made. Good thing he found a woman named Carla Beth! "Beth I know you're lonely/And I hope you'll be alright/'Cause me and the boys will be playing/All night"....
I discovered the song "
Question" by the Old 97's quite by accident when, on a lark, I checked out the
Scrubs Soundtrack from the Iowa City Public Library. It is just the sweetest song ever: "Someday somebody's gonna ask you/A question that you should say yes to/Once in your life/Maybe tonight, I've got a question for you"....
"
All I Want" by Toad the Wet Sprocket came out in the early 90's, before I was mature enough to get them, but their music got me through the second half of college. I even used this song when I was teaching adults English and they loved it! "Nothing so cold/As closing the heart when all we need is to free the soul/But we wouldn't be that brave I know"....
Una de las bandas que me encontré en búsqueda recién de música nueva resultó ser media vieja, pero ya no concibo la vida sin Café Tacvba. Se segundo disco
Re de 1994 es considerado por muchas personas el mejor disco de rock jamás hecho, pero no es rock, en realidad: no es nada en específico, es pura música buena: véase "
El baile y el salón", una canción funk sobre un amor entre dos hombres, antes de que fuera "woke" cantar de esas cosas: "Y así bailando quiero/Que me hagas el amor/De hombre a hombre/
Voleuz-vous coucher avec moi?", ....
My roommates at 520 S. Johnson Street sophomore year of college can testify that I listened WAY too much to Third Eye Blind's eponymous debut album, but there was, and is, something about the last track on that disc, "
God of Wine", that always haunts me: "And there's memory of a window, looking through I see you/Searching for something I could never give you/There's someone who understands you more than I do/A sadness I can't erase, all alone on your face"....
The Counting Crows'
August and Everything After was by far the most important album of my high school years; "
Raining in Baltimore" is not the best song on that disc, but it certainly captures the melancholy of middle adolescence. "And I get no answers/And I don't get no change/It's raining in Baltimore, baby/But everything else is the same"....
El guatemalteco Ricardo Arjona ha hecho 15 álbumes de estudio; 14 fueron completamente mediocres, pero
Si el norte fuera el sur de 1996 se ganó una rotación permanente en el bar Alfredos en la esquina de la Avenida 4 y la Calle 19 en el centro de Mérida hasta, al menos, el verano de 2002. Pista número 8 era "
Duerme": "Y tú que aún no entiendes que te amo/Porque no entiendes el lenguaje de mis manos/Mañana al despertar yo te diré/Lo que por este tiempo me callé"....
Al final de la película mexicana tremenda
Y tu mamá también de 2001, Lucía va a una rockola y pone B-14. Resulta ser "
Si no te hubieras ido" por Marco Antonio Solís, pero yo prefiero la versión de Maná. No te diré más; ¡ve a ver la película!: "Te extraño más que nunca y no sé que hacer/Despierto y te recuerdo al amanecer/Me espera otro día por vivir sin ti/El espejo no miento, me veo tan diferente/Me haces falta tú"....
Shakira Membarak, o simplemente Shakira, siempre tendrá un lugar especial en mi corazón; su disco
¿Dónde están los ladrones de 1998 fue el primer álbum que tuve en castellano, pero esta canción, "
Lo que más", vino posteriormente en su carrera. Sencilla, dulce y triste: "Sabe Dios/cómo me cuesta dejarte/Y te miro mientras duermes, más no voy despertarte/Es que hoy, se me agotó la esperanza"....
Another 90's (actually 1989, but things came late to Sheldon) tune that happily made it into my English class for adults was Don Henley's "
The Heart of the Matter". Long before I realized he was the voice of the Eagles, these lyrics charmed me: "The trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness/They're the very things we kill, I guess"....
Ni me acuerdo cómo me supe de la música de Soraya Lamilla, pero a través del tiempo, de poco en poco, fui desarrollando una fuerte conexión con la vulnerabilidad oída en su voz. Lamentablemente nos dejó Soraya en 2006 debido al cáncer de mama, pero antes nos dejó varias joyas, entre ellas "
Lejos de aquí": "Y le pregunto cuándo y cómo la perdí/Le pregunto si algún día, yo seré lo que fui"....
Fleetwod Mac originally recorded the song "
Landslide" in 1975. Twenty-seven years later, the Dixie Chicks did a cover, and no one sings quite like Natalie Maines: "But time makes bolder/Children get older/I'm getting older, too". I mean, c'mon. That's not fair....
Pearl Jam helped defined 1990's music, particularly in the first half of that decade. They came seemingly out of nowhere and suddenly were everywhere. Rock music wasn't happy anymore, and no song illustrates that like "
Indifference" from 1993's sophomore effort,
Versus. Eddie's voice starts very soft and slowly rises, until he cries at us: "I'll swallow poison until I grow immune/I will scream my lungs out 'till it fills this room/How much difference does it make?"....
Another gem, this one not so hidden, from that
Scrubs soundtrack was The Fray's 2005 "
How to Save a Life". This song was one of the very few that made it through the fog of my kids' early childhood years to make an impact on me; it was a 90's song after the 90's: "Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend/Somewhere along in the bitterness, and/I'd've stayed up with you all night/Had I known how to save a life"....
I try so hard not to like the movie
Grease. It has everything I propose to dislike: unrealistic stereotypes of high school, smooth, cheesy lyrics, and men who dance for cameras. But when Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) kneels down outside her friend's house and sings "
Hopelessly Devoted to You" for Danny (John Travolta), well than, what can a man do but give in? "But now, there's nowhere to hide/Since you pushed my love aside/I'm out of my head/Hopelessly devoted to you"....
Ya les hablé de Ricardo Arjona, pero pues, una vez no basta, pues debido a él yo, de cierta forma, puedo ecribir esto mero en castellano. La primera vez que hice karaoke en español, fue con la canción "
¿Te acuerdas de mí (Carta #2)", la supe así de bien. Aun ahora, la canto como si yo mismo la hubiera escrito: "Soy el mismo de ayer/aunque ya no respondo como antes me tendrías que ver/cuando ya nos emcumbra el deseo/Y entre charlas de Borges y de García Márquez/Busco el mejor momento"....
Inside every good boy who grew up in Iowa in the 1980's, there is secluded a weakness for hair bands. It was all we had, okay? Warrant was the hairiest of hair bands, but they made a song in "
Sad Theresa" that belies a talent behind the hair spray. It is just such a
sweet song: "I've always wanted to sing/And I've always wanted to be/Somebody's idol or somebody's daydream/Maybe their fantasy"....
Another artist will be mentioned a second time here, and that honor goes to Toad the Wet Sprocket. Before them, I wasn't sure you could package my spiritual beliefs into music. I've already told Sonia that "
Windmills" is to be played at my funeral: "Well there's something that you won't show/Waiting where the light goes/And maybe anywhere the wind blows/It's all worth waiting for"....
Good friend/Pizza Ranch coworker Lindsey Hirth (née Byers) was always raving about some lady singer named Natalie Merchant. Wouldn't stop. And I'm glad she didn't, because otherwise I would have never listened to "
The Letter", and I wouldn't have ever heard this masterpiece of unrequited love: "And if I ever write this letter/The truth it would reveal/Knowing you had brought me pleasure/And how I often treasure/The moments that we knew/The precious, the few"....
In a darkened high school commons, winter of 1995-96, worst winter of my life, I danced very close to a girl I'd known less than 24 hours, and "
Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls surrounded us. "We grew up way too fast/Now there's nothing to believe/And reruns all become our history/A tired song keeps playing on a tired radio/And I won't tell no one your name". It was the moment I realized that a girl could be just as vulnerable as a boy. I was shocked.
