(Yes, that is me)
There is a very particular joy that I exceedingly miss.
Say it’s 1986. I saved some babysitting money and convinced my mom to stop off at Music Plus or Sam Goody or if I was really really lucky, Lovell’s on the way home from school. I had to make my purchase quick while she waited in the car with my kid sisters so I usually knew exactly what I wanted. I had an ongoing list of cassette tapes I wanted to buy, Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, The Smiths. But this week, it was the newest release from the band, a-ha.
No, a-ha is not just a one hit wonder from the song, “Take on Me.” The band from Norway had a lot of other great songs, including a James Bond theme thank you very much!
Walking out to my mom’s brown Ford Aerostar holding that small plastic bag with a shiny new cassette tape inside made me feel like somebody! I couldn’t wait to get home and peel off the plastic covering that was also so difficult to unwrap.
I had saved babysitting money and money from recycling aluminum cans that I begged off grandparents, neighbors or just picked up in the park to buy a sweet stereo. The cassette deck slid out and when you put the cassette in and closed the little drawer into place, there was a clear window where you could watch the gears turn as you listened.
I put on my huge over the head earphones, laid back on my white porcelain daybed, the one with a trundle, just in case a friend spent the night and listened to the title song of the album Scoundrel Days. When the chorus broke through, I suffered an uncontrollable sense of emotion. So intense that I looked around my room to make sure no one was there and could see me. I was embarrassed by what I felt, hot joy.
I felt love, hope, understood, what it felt like to be known. The beauty of the harmony and keyboards overwhelmed me. It was as if Morten Harket (the lead singer with those spectacular high notes) knew exactly how I felt---all the hopes, dreams and --- in my soul and was singing them right into my ear.
And see, as our lives are in the making
We believe through the lies and the hating
That love goes free
I wanted to sob.
In my initial listening to the tape that night, I easily listened through the entire album ten times straight, stopping only when my mother called me to dinner. I learned the harmonies to sing along. I created little hand motions and dances to teach my little sisters and friends who came to visit. I pulled out the liner notes reading the lyrics along with the songs, memorizing them by the next day. I might hand write the lyrics to one of the songs to pass to a friend in a letter in class the next day. Because THIS WOULD BE THE ONLY WAY SHE COULD GET THE LYRICS! I couldn’t take a screen shot or make a copy on my printer and she could not look them up on line. Until she could buy her own tape, she would only know if I wrote them out for her.
I miss this. The initial surge of excitement of listening to an album you just KNEW you were going to love.
***
I remember this joy very well! My first experience with this was with Frankie Goes To Hollywood. I remember when my tape player ate my tape & I made my mom drive me to Sam Goody to get another copy
1965 — Beatles — Rubber Soul
Chris Davis’ Parents’ guest house at 10 PM.
Thanks for giving me that memory back.
Magical.