Play it on Repeat

What would today’s world do without Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, TikTok - the internet, essentially - to meet their music entertainment needs?

When I was growing up in the 80’s, there were just the top hits on the radio, Video Hits and MuchMusic videos on Canadian TV, my tape recorder and cassettes, and the scattered record or eight track at my disposal. Of course, CDs came along in my mid-teens, and I compiled a collection of those, mostly acquired for under $1 from Columbia House.

In my pre-teens, there was no single song that I subscribed to, or deeply connected with. But young females invaded the pop scene, and as a whole, helped me to identify the new feelings I was having as a hormone-dishevelled young woman; Debbie Gibson, Cyndi Lauper, Tiffany, Madonna and others helped me to have confidence in myself as a female and cope with feelings of first love, hurt and loss.

"Papa, don't cry ‘cause it's alright

And I see you in some of his ways

Though he might not give me the life that you wanted

I'll love him the rest of my days"

As a teenager, I still enjoyed the hits of the 80’s, but my musical tastes started to change along with my body and my moods. Some alternative and folk-type music resonated with me at the time, and one song in particular grabbed me. In fact, this same song has carried me through the stages of my life so far. I never really understood why as the years seemed to quickly pass, but I even sang the song to my daughters, and recently I sang it to my baby granddaughter for the first time.

People have been surprised and chuckle when I tell them I sang Misguided Angel by The Cowboy Junkies to my daughters when they were children. “Mama, he’s crazy and he scares me, but I want him by my side” is the first line. Enough said, right?

I sang it so often, they eventually requested that I sing it to them at bedtime. Even my mother had a recording of me singing the song and played it in her car for my two daughters when they were young children. Mom may even still have the CD in her glove box.

I can’t remember if I heard the tune for the first time on a music video or heard it on the radio. What I do remember is buying a single by the same band on cassette tape as soon as it was released at the music store. It was a different song of theirs, but it clinched my band-fandom. I think I still have the cardboard-encased cassette tucked away in a box with other treasures from the past.

“Though he’s wild and he’s bad and

sometimes just plain mad I need him to keep

me satisfied.’”

I was an introverted young adult and drawn to things that were at least a little different from the mainstream. Family and acceptance of differences in people, no matter their flaws, has always been important to me. I think that is why I connected deeply to Misguided Angel, playing it over and over…

I did outgrow some of my introversion as a young adult in university, but the song continued to resonate with me through my journey of ages and stages and each leg of it connects to the tune; I’ve been known to make some unusual choices in regard to relationships and jobs, and that’s just to start with.

“Misguided angel hanging over me

Heart like a Gabriel, pure and white as ivory

Soul like a Lucifer, black and cold like a piece of lead

Misguided angel, love you til I’m dead.’”

The refrain of the song speaks to bravery, I think, and I’ve needed to be brave in order to veer on and off the different paths in my life. For a long time, I was missing passion in all its forms but without knowing it at first. And when I finally figured it out, I thought I wasn’t allowed to switch gears, so I stayed where I supposed I should be.

“Brother, you speak to me of passion

You said never to settle for nothing less

Well, it's in the way he walks,

It's in the way he talks

His smile, his anger and his kisses’”

Maybe I have a misguided angel to thank for shaking me up and out of the existential funk I was in; for guiding me along the way to new places, because that’s exactly what I needed. It’s funny to think of it that way now, and that it’s the one and only title I can think of that’s on my playlist. The song itself is the same, even though I’ve made lots of changes in my inner and outer worlds since I started listening to it over 30 years ago.

Which makes it not really a playlist, so it appears as though I’ve still got a habit of diverging from the roads more often taken. Maybe I’m not much different than the 15-year-old girl happily buying the new, plastic-sealed cassette in the light blue cardboard sleeve.

“Sister, don’t you understand

He’s all I ever wanted in a man

And I’m tired of sitting round

The tv each night, hopin’ of finding a mister right.”