The Song of My People

I love music. Music can take you away to so many places without you leaving your seat. It can change an attitude, express a feeling, and even define who you are or want to be that day. I grew up in a somewhat conservative house. We did not get cable until mid to late 1990s. Until that time we still had the television where you had 13 channels and only channels 6,8, and 13 worked, you had to turn a knob to switch channels, and the power button you pulled out to turn on and pushed it back in to turn it off. If I wanted to watch television I went to my friends house. Once we had gotten cable there were very strict rules about when I could watch it. As a parent now, I totally get it. I was not top of my class and was notorious for waiting until the last minute to study or complete a project. If I was found watching television the conversation went a little something like this. Q1:“Katherine, is you homework done?” If answer was “No”, which it was 99.9% of the time, continue to Q2. If the answer was “Yes” because it was summer, skip to Q3. Q2: “Katherine, do you have a or project this week…or next?” If the answer was “Yes” continue to Q3. If answer was “No” continue to Q3. Q3: “Katherine, is your room clean?” If the answer was “No” continue to Q4. If answer was “Yes” continue to Q4. Q4: “Katherine, is it a week night?” Disclaimer: Sheltered is another word for my upbringing. Seriously, do not get me wrong. I would not change a thing about how I was raised and had a very good life. Music was another odd-ball in my childhood. I did not listen to the radio until I was in middle school. It wasn’t until then that I discovered music, really. I was surrounded by hymns and very conservative church music. Middle school I discovered radio. Dancing? Forget it! I knew that dancing was, “A vertical display of a horizontal desire.” I am Steve Martin from The Jerk, not familiar with the movie try Elaine from Seinfeld. I cannot dance, but sometimes, music moves my body. I cannot clap on beat or predict when the music will “drop”, but I still love it. I would take a cassette recorder, flip it upside down, and place on my alarm clock radio so I could record my favorite songs as they played on the radio. The early pirating. Timing was everything! Steve Lindell from WLBC seemed to always cut into the last part of the song, so you had to time it perfectly meaning you wouldn’t always get the last few cords, but you had the meat and potatoes of the song. My friend knew every song ever written. She knew all the words. It did not matter the genre of the song, she still knew all the word! She also had an amazing CD collection. She would let me play DJ in her car, my car did not have a CD player so we would take hers, and I would shuffle through usually playing the same songs I always played. She introduced me to everything from pop music to country. I started dating a guy, my now husband, who did not have the same up bringing as myself. He knew none of the songs I knew and I knew none of the songs he knew. I hated his music. Now, almost 13 years later of having to listen to it, I like it. I feel over my years I have a fair grasp on all different genres of music. I taught middle school for several years and they kept me on my “musical” toes. I had to keep up. The moment you lose touch with music, you’ve lost touch with many of your students on some level. The other day I went into Old Navy. As I waited in line to buy my clearance jeans I listened to the song the store was playing. I thought, “Where do they find this music? Seriously, do they look for songs that no one knows to make themselves seem more elite?” That’s when I heard it. It was all around me. The two teenagers in front of me were singing. They knew every single, stupid word! The two teenagers who I’ve had to listen to flirt with each other badly for the past 7 minutes are singing too. They know every word to this song and the next! *insert wide eyed emoji* What is happening? How did this happen? How does everyone else know the lyrics to these weird songs and I have never heard of them? It was then I had the answer! I wasn’t out of touch! I was in California! They of course get all the new music before the rest of the county, duh.