Don't Touch My Stereo

I’m not a musician. As a matter of fact, for having taken over two years of childhood lessons, I can only play one song on the piano and all I can still play on saxophone is part of my high school fight song . Those are my musical limits. And please don’t ever ask me to sing. I might think I can carry a tune, but so did a lot of people who tried out for American Idol- and I never had the encouragement they were given from overzealous parents. Having said all that though, I did grow up listening to and falling in love with several types of music, from my dad’s favorite Motown hits to my mom’s favorite Christmas tunes. Having grown up in the cassette tape era, I still have a lot of my mixtapes, which I’ve since converted to burned CD’s and then to iTunes and/or Spotify playlists. Those mixes fall in different genres and span different periods in my life. The songs they contain are time machines that instantly take my thoughts to years gone by, even to short-lived moments of adventure, falling in love, heartbreak, and rebirth.

The following songs are most prominent in my memories. Their melodies and lyrics are to my ears as a smell is for the nose.

If you recognized the quote in the image, you know my first track. Janet Jackson’s “Control” cassette was the first thing I ever remember my brother buying for me. I played Side A repeatedly until I memorized it. Ms. Jackson, (if you're nasty), became my favorite female artist and has remained in that top spot since 1986.

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In thinking about my early childhood, I am quite certain my mom insisted on me knowing Mother Goose nursery rhymes and songs of the like. I know the first song I heard and learned was most likely the Auburn University fight song. It was also the first song in my life to include censored lyrics. Rather than saying “Give ‘em hell! Give ‘em hell!”, my dad, the Auburn alumnus in our house, taught me to sing “Hit ‘em high! Hit ‘em low!”. Nowadays, I don’t believe in censoring song lyrics, so I've passed down the 'explicit' version to my daughter.

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I still own my little yellow record player on which I played 45 RPM records regularly. When I hear the following songs they transport me back to my childhood bedroom. I would sit on the floor and examine the records’ flimsy paper covers while they played, listening to the scratchy sounds of the turntable and needle. Or, if I was in a wild mood, I would get on my bed and jump/dance around while lip-syncing to the tunes- with my door shut so no one else could see me, of course.

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My childhood best friend and I experienced many, many sleepovers, but one I will never forget had us waking up on a Saturday morning to watch music videos and discovering a new group of teen boys from Boston. The music (and the cute boys) of New Kids on the Block began mine and my friends’ discovery of our “type” of boys. We most likely defined our next several years of relationships by choosing either the bad boy, the shy one, the cute one, the older brother type, or the heartthrob.

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When the clock strikes midnight on November 1st each year, it’s time to bust out the Christmas music. The very first on my list is my mom's favorite, Johnny Mathis. His tunes are the epitome of the holidays to me. And while my mom didn't actually listen to Christmas music that early, he was always first on the playlist when it was time to make cookies and other goodies. We'd spend a Saturday each Christmas season baking sugar cookies, fudge, tea cakes, and many yummy morsels while listening to her Christmas albums. And though my mom is gone now, I try to carry on this tradition with my own child because Christmas just wouldn't be the same without Jesus AND Johnny Mathis.

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There comes a time in every young music lover’s life where you sit down near your music player and you repeat a song over and over until you memorize the lyrics. Most memorably for me, this was “Ice, Ice, Baby” by Vanilla Ice. Something about the early 90's rap song was (and still is) so enjoyable to rap along with. I also tend to blurt out lyrics in random moments of my life- either to impress or embarrass those around me. If you were a kid, tween, or teen during this era, you could probably keep up with me.

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And then there is the soundtrack of my "spring awakening". Puberty, middle and high school, boyfriends, and all kinds of new feelings are best described by music and lyrics. I know these won't make a lot of sense to anyone but me, however they define my coming of age and simply held my hand while I stepped from child to teen.

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I. Want. You to know. I loved high school senior year. And I loved the summer post-graduation, before college, even more. My brother got married that summer and when I wasn’t helping with wedding prep, I was hanging out with hometown friends. At the time, I didn’t know it would be the last time I would see or speak to some of them until mid-adulthood. Because of its timing during early womanhood and outright girl power message, “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette became the sound of the season during that summer.

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Then, from almost directly opposite of the girl power spectrum came the Spice Girls' “Wannabe”. This song ushered in the beginning of years' long love for all things ‘pop group’. Where NKOTB left off, the Spice Girls revamped and revitalized, bringing pop groups back to the forefront of music culture.

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This new era of pop came with a plethora of new boy bands, but none took up residence in my heart like *NSYNC. These five boys, befitting the trope exactly as they should, became my substitute boyfriends while I navigated college and retail jobs and long days spent away from home. Five concert road trips and many fun memories later, these guys and their music define my young adulthood in such a significant way.

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Finally, I find it funny, now as I write this, that after almost two decades together, I can’t think of one song that reminds me of any particular time with my ex-husband. But I can tell you, after going through the roughest Christmas of my life in 2019, followed by the world shutting down in 2020, I certainly have some songs that helped me through my divorce. Maybe it reawakened that whole ‘girl power’ thing I had achieved through music during college, but these songs kicked my butt into gear when I needed a mood lift or just some time to cry or to be angry.

Reviewing this now, I guess it could be its own ‘divorce playlist’, but that’s actually just a small sampling of what is on my “Self <3” soundtrack.

Music is definitely a composition of life. At least it is mine. And I have tried hard to instill the love of all genres into my daughter (except Country- I cannot and will not try hard with that). She’s 11 now and one of my proudest moments happened two years ago while playing the board game ‘MTV: The Music Throwback Party Quiz’. She had to describe an artist for the other players to guess by performing one of his or her songs. After drawing her card, she looked straight at me and said, “This is a story about control...”