Age 6 - Gotta Boogie, Weird Al Yankovic
Age 7 - Take Off, Getty Lee (from The Great White North soundtrack)
Age 8 - La Bamba, Los Lobos version
Age 9 - Parents Just Don't Understand - DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
Age 10 - U Can't Touch This, MC Hammer
Age 11 - Life is a Highway, Tom Cochrane
Age 12 - Nuthin But a G Thang, Dr Dre
Age 13 - Regulate, Warren G
Age 14 - Black, Pearl Jam
Age 15 - No Woman No Cry, Bob Marley & The Wailers
Age 16 - I am the Walrus, Beatles
Age 17 - Everlong, Foo Fighters
Age 18 - Yellow Ledbetter, Pearl Jam
Age 19 - La Mentira, Manu Chao
Age 20 - Amiyo, Bisso na Bisso
Age 21 - More Than Words, Extreme
Age 22 - El Desierto, Lhasa de Sela
Age 23 - Hoy Me Voy, Sargento Garcia
Age 24 - Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Neil Young
Gotta Boogie was on Weird Al's self-titled first album, which my grandfather gave to my brother and me at this time. Take Off, same thing. My grandfather gave my brother and me the Great White North soundtrack, which we practically memorized in a month. I can only hope that I hang onto my sense of humor like my grandfather did. I don't remember how I ended up with the La Bamba soundtrack, but the song La Bamba quickly became my favorite. It was just fun to sing along to phonetically. In 4th and 5th grade I was a huge fan of DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. I had all their albums, and Parents Just Don't Understand was my favorite. MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice were the next step up in the hip-hop phase of my life.
I listened to Tom Cochrane's Life is a Highway every single day in 6th grade. There was a girl that year who had a crush on me, and knew that this was my favorite song. So, hoping that I was listening, she called into the Open House Party (with the Wiiiiiiiiild Armenian John Garabedian) and requested and dedicated this song to me. Unfortunately I wasn't listening. She was a bit peeved, but she got over it. Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg were at the top of my hip-hop phase, which was full-fledged in 7th grade. I bought a black and white flannel to look like Dre and thought that Nuthin but a G Thang was my anthem.
This music was like nothing I'd ever heard before. I guess I'd seen Pearl Jam and Nirvana on MTV, but when I sat alone in my room and put Ten in the CD player, it blew me away. Black, in particular, really moved me. I'd never heard anyone sing with this much sincere emotion. I admit that Eddie Vedder, at times, can mumble incomprehensibly with his lyrics. But the pure emotion in his voice is more than enough to make up for that, particularly with the visceral growl heard in his early years with Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam literally changed my life.
At age 15, I went to a Bob Marley festival in Detroit with my best friend, Joe, and his aunt. This was my first exposure to reggae music. When we were on our way to the festival, I made what could be the stupidest remark of my life. "Bob Marley, he plays reggae, right?" About a month after I came home I was going through my brother's room, recently abandoned when he left for college. I found a tape he'd made from his friend Jason's CD's. On side A was Legend, a greatest hits collection from Bob Marley & The Wailers. Even without the drugs, it was mind-expanding.
When I was 16, I re-discovered the Beatles. My mother was and still is a big fan of the Beatles, even though I had to break the news to her that they'd done drugs in the 60's. She'd never heard such a thing before. In the quest for non-conformity which ruled that stage of my life, I am the Walrus seemed to suit me best.
At age 17, I went to my first real concert, the H.O.R.D.E. festival in Saratoga. On the bill were Kula Shaker, Leftover Salmon, Soul Coughing, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Beck, Primus, and Neil Young. Simply amazing. And when I heard Foo Fighters' Everlong, it exactly what I'd felt at that concert - "Hello, I've waited here for you, everlong...Breathe out, so I can breathe you in, hold you in." I was hooked.
At age 18, high school ended. Drastic changes, and we all went off in our own directions. August 20, 1998 was sort of our last hurrah. Pearl Jam was playing in Montreal, and I went along with Ashley, Shawn, Buck, and Joe. At 5 the next morning, Buck was off to the bus terminal en route to Puget Sound. A week later, I left for Ithaca, Joe went to Vassar, and Ashley and Shawn stayed home to attend Plattsburgh State. Things would never be the same again, and the ultimate goodbye song, Yellow Ledbetter, bid us farewell.
When I was 19, I left for a semester in Aix-en-Provence, France. Another eye-opening experience. I began to see things from a global perspective, rather than the narrow-minded and short-sighted American way. There, among other things, I found Manu Chao. His song, La Mentira, describes my original reaction to this new perspective.
Todo es mentira en este mundo
Todo es mentira, la verdad
Todo es
mentira, yo me digo
Todo es mentira, porque sera
-------------------------------
Everything's a lie in this world
Everything's a lie, it's the truth
Everything's a lie, I tell myself
Everything's a lie, why?
When I went to France, I had no problem with culture shock or homesickness. The newness of everything, along with my mind as a sponge to soak everything up, overcame these emotions. Sure I missed people, but I knew I'd be coming home in four months. When I came back to the States, however, I had a terrible transition back into my old life. I felt as though so much in my life had changed, while nothing back here had changed at all. It was frustrating, and it seemed like no one else understood this. I went into a semester of isolation, trying to surround myself with as many things French as I could. This coincided with the free days of Napster. I downloaded thousands of French songs onto my computer. Among these was Amiyo, by Bisso na Bisso, a collaboration by Congolese hip hop artists who'd emigrated to France. The song uses vivid imagery to describe a beautiful woman, absolutely ideal. They sing about their longing for her, and plead with her to just give in and end their suffering by letting them into her life. For me, though, it described my longing to be in France. This ideal place I'd known and left and just wanted to get back to. No one understood my longing, but that didn't matter to me.
Shortly after turning 21, I began my first internship in physical therapy. I spent these six weeks with my grandparents, who lived only 3 miiles away from the hospital. While there, they asked me a few times to play guitar for them. I didn't really know many songs they liked, but when I played More Than Words by Extreme, my grandfather's eyes lit up. He'd heard that song about 10 years before and ran out and bought the CD. "The rest of it's dirty, you don't want to listen to it," he said. But he loved that song, and played the melody on his harmonica while I played the guitar for it. It was brief, but a memorable connection with my grandfather.
When I was 22, I spent the last great Christmas Break at home with my family. Both Jim and Buck were home as well, and we spent most nights either playing hockey or Atari, which Jim had just bought on eBay. Buck was the DJ for his college radio station's international music show, and brought a bunch of mp3's to Jim's one night. We spent a good 20 minutes listening to Lhasa de Sela's El Desierto, trying to decide if she sounded sexy or scary (turns out it was both). This song was my introduction to Lhasa's music, which came right in the middle of my Latin music phase.
At 23, I graduated from college, and was finally forced to join "the real world." I had to officially cut the cord and venture out on my own: find a job, get an apartment, pay bills. During this time, the song Hoy Me Voy by Sargent Garcia really sang to my experience. In it he sings about it being a beautiful morning, he gets up, sees the people milling about, in search of some shade. But he has to get out of his hometown, as much as it hurts him to think about all he's leaving, because there's no work there and he has to find a way to support himself.
After a few months, homesickness set in. I bought my first Neil Young CD, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. The title track was what I needed to hear. It made me feel better to know that someone else seemed to miss his home as much as I did.
Every time I think about back home, it's cool and breezy
I wish that I could be there right now, just passin' time
Everybody seems to wonder what it's like down here
I gotta get away from this day-to-day running around
Everybody knows this is nowhere
At the end of last year, we moved from PA back to Rochester. For me, it meant being 3 hours closer to home. It's also a bit of a homecoming, as both Michaelene and I were here for a year in college, and we have a group of friends living in the area. I haven't yet picked a song for this year. I still have 7 1/2 months, though, so there's no pressure yet.
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