One of the things I miss living I’m in Egypt is driving. I enjoy driving, but not only that, driving was always the time when I was able to listen to music. Since I don’t drive in Egypt my music listening habits have been much curtailed. Not that I’m missing much in Cairo. The one Western music radio station I’ve heard plays a bizarre mix of old and new pop with the occasional Arabic track mixed in and certain times of the day seem to be dedicated to techno dance music or other themes – honestly, I’ve never listened long enough to discern the pattern.
Now that I’m back in the US and on vacation, I’m driving again. But I still can’t listen to the music I like. There isn’t much in the way of radio reception way back here in the woods. That doesn’t faze my children at all, however.
Way back when I was a child, my musical choices were pretty much dictated by my parents – particularly when traveling in a car. I listened to what they listened to, which given the technological limitations of the time period pretty much meant that we listened to the radio. One of the earliest songs I can remember singing along to was “Rhinestone Cowboy” by Glen Campbell. I have a vast repertoire of lyrics from Barry Manilow, Billy Joel, and Neil Diamond to name a few, and there was one memorable summer when my father tortured me on a cross country drive with tapes of Woody Guthrie. Though I might have made other choices myself – and very likely made some disparaging remarks about their choices in my adolescent years – I never managed to impose my own music on them.
Somehow, that all seems to have changed. I regularly end up listening to CDs my children select instead of things I might prefer myself. Last summer, that meant that we listened to the Grease soundtrack on an endless loop. This summer was threatening to turn into the summer of the Jonas Brothers. I don’t actually hate the Jonas Brothers but I’ve heard “The Year 3000” more than enough times, so I decided to take charge and broaden their musical horizons.
Inspired by a recent trip to a bowling alley, I bought three CDs of hits from the 1980s. The bowling alley was playing music videos from that time period and we were all enjoying the music, a rare occurrence. These CDs haven’t done anything toward introducing me to any new popular music, but they seemed like a good idea at the time.
“We Got the Beat” by the GoGos, “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves, and “Walk Like an Egyptian” by The Bangles were all big hits. And then I heard the lyrics to “My Angel is a Centerfold” by the J. Giles Band coming from my six year olds mouth and it put a new spin on things. And that wasn’t as half as bad as “My Sharona” or “Good Girls Don’t” by The Knack:
You’re alone with her at last,
And you’re waiting til you think the time is right.
Cause you’ve heard she’s pretty fast.
And you’re hoping that she’ll give you some tonight.
So, you start to make your play,
Cause you could’ve sworn you thought you heard her saying…
“Good girls don’t,
Good girls don’t,
She’ll be tellin’ you,
Good girls don’t, but I do.”
And it’s a teenage sadness
Everyone has got to taste.
An in-between age madness
That you know you can’t erase
Til she’s sitting on your face.
They haven’t asked for any interpretation of the lyrics so for now I’m just going to enjoy the music. My alternative is either more of Grease, The Jonas Brothers, or the two High School Musical CDs my daughter got for her birthday. I think I’d rather take my chances with the 80s for now…
