2003-08-29

Longest Entry in Blog History

Once again, I�m stealing blog ideas from Gump and riding Sandy�s wave. I prefer to think of this not as �plagiarism� but as �inspiration.�

Here�s my list of 33 songs...one for every year I�ve been alive. I�m going to try to put them in chronological order, but each song doesn�t correlate with a precise year. Some songs have meaning, others I just like.

1. Daddy�s Little Girl - ?
My dad used to sing this to me when I was a little girl. Every girl should be raised by a dad like mine. His face would light up the moment he saw me. It wasn�t a perverse adoration. My dad just thinks I am the smartest, funniest and most beautiful girl on the planet. Not a day goes by when he doesn�t tell me that. He�s the reason I like myself so much.

2. Just A Gigolo - Louis Prima
Growing up, my family lived in a double ~ we lived in the upstairs flat and my grandparents lived in the apartment downstairs. The doors were always open and we ate dinner together every night. On Wednesdays and Sundays my grandmother would make a huge pot of spaghetti sauce. It would simmer on the stove all day. She never uses a recipe. My cousin Charles and I have gone to her house on separate occasions to watch her make sauce. She makes it differently every time and it always tastes the same.
My grandfather had a huge collection of record albums, mostly artists like Louis Prima, Keely Smith, Jerry Vale and Dean Martin. We would sit in the television room with a tape player and he would record me singing and talking. I can still remember what the microphone looked and smelled like and the way the electricity from it tickled my lips.
Just a Gigolo was my favorite song to sing. Every Sunday my entire family would come for dinner and I would be placed on the dining room table to sing and dance. Everyone clapped along and sang. Sundays were happy and loving.

3. Zooma Zooma - Louis Prima
My grandmother used to sing this song in the kitchen. She sang lullabies in Italian. I�ve always wished that she hadn�t become so American and held on to some of her childhood traditions. My grandmother is called Evelyn. Her given name is Antonina. Her sister Anna thought that name was too �ethnic� to be successful with jobs and boys, so she just went and changed it. She�s been Evvie ever since. I can still hear my grandfather�s voice calling her by that name.
The day he died, I was upstairs getting ready to go to the opera company for work. I was wearing a brown skirt. I heard my grandmother wailing. Everyone else in the house was asleep because it was a holiday ~ Veteran�s Day. I ran downstairs and saw my grandfather slumped in his chair at the kitchen table. Steam was still rising from the cup of coffee my grandmother had placed in front of him. He had just come in from shoveling snow in the driveway. I picked him up under the shoulders and laid him gently on the floor. My mom and brother came running downstairs. I called 911.
My grandmother ran into the living room and was yelling, �NO! NO, CHUCK! YOU CAN�T LEAVE ME YET! IT�S NOT TIME!� She couldn�t be in the room watching him die. My brother tried to give him CPR, but I could tell it was futile. He gasped twice and his chest heaved. I saw his pantleg become wet. I knew what was happening. I stood back quietly and waited for the end. It was peaceful. The last look I saw on his face was one of satisfaction. He lived a good life. I went into the living room to hug my grandma. The paramedics came.
The next thing I remember is receiving a phone call saying that my grandfather arrived at the hospital dead on arrival. I felt sick. I never went to his funeral because I was laying on my back in an operating room watching the anaesthesia mask coming down over my nose and mouth. I still dream about him and hear his voice.

4. A Spoonful of Sugar - Julie Andrews
I loved Mary Poppins. I wanted to be Mary Poppins.

5. Puppy Love - Donny Osmond
Donny Osmond was the first boy to give me butterflies and cause me to cry myself to sleep. He wouldn�t be the last.

6. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World - Charlie Rich
I went to private Catholic school my entire life. I didn�t take a school bus and my friends didn�t live in my neighborhood. My mom or dad drove me to school every day, until the year we began carpooling with two other families. In the morning, my dad would listen to AM radio. This is one of the songs I will always remember. My mom bought me the 45.
Whenever I tune the radio to an AM station, I am instantly transported to the black Ford LTD with the slippery seats and rhythmic turn signal. I can still feel the grooves of the volume dial and the resistance of the tuner�s memory push buttons under my fingers.
I can�t pass the zoo without feeling like the small child sitting on that enormous bench seat listening to AM radio watching the sun peek through the trees of the park on my way to school.

7. The Unicorn - from the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Soundtrack (poem by Shel Silverstein)
My brother was a restless baby. He had colic and never slept. My dad would turn on this record every night, pick up my brother and walk him around with my brother�s head on his shoulder for hours. It would settle him. My dad would chant softly to my brother, �Oh my little boy...�
When my brother finally fell asleep, my dad would put him in his bed and lay next to him with one foot on the floor. If my brother woke up, my dad would pick him up and walk him some more. My dad is the most selfless person I know.

8. Isn�t She Lovely - Stevie Wonder
I owned �Songs in the Key of Life� on double cassette as a kid. I listened to Stevie, Blood Sweat and Tears and Chicago. I also had a huge collection of 45s that included ELO and Debby Boone. They�re in my attic in a Mickey Mouse 45 holder.

9. Color My World - Chicago
I taught myself to play the flute solo from this song by ear. I think this was the same year I obsessively created artistic renditions of album covers by Journey, REO Speedwagon and Split Enz to hang on my bedroom wall.

10. Suite in A Minor - Telleman
This was the first solo piece I played competitively. In competition, I had to play a rehearsed piece (this one), demonstrate proficiency at scales and play a short piece from sight. I was average at scales, bombed out on the sight reading and nailed the Suite. My overall score was decent but I never made it from the local to the state level as a flutist. I played weddings instead.

11. Beat It - Michael Jackson
I am embarrassed to say I was once attracted to the King of Freaks. I once licked a television set while his video was playing.

12. Every Breath You Take - The Police
This band is singlehandedly responsible for the evolution of Joe Paradox.

13. Dear Prudence - The Beatles
In my early teens, my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Records. Records were all I wanted. I asked for three Beatles albums, including the White Album, and a variety of musicals. I spent endless hours in my room listening, reading liner notes and examining cover art and pictures. I spent a lot of time by myself back then.

14. Don�t Go - Yaz
The high school dancing song. Seana and Peter danced in front of Sheri�s fireplace and looked each other directly in the eye as they sang the words. Seana, have you heard from him? I stood back and watched other people connecting and wondered why it wasn�t happening to me. There was nothing romantic about Seana and Peter�s connection. It just was. Then Fran came along. Click. We spooned on the third floor of Sheri�s house. I was 15.

15. Melt With You - Modern English
My junior prom theme song. Guess who my date was? Fran. I wore a white dress and looked every inch the good Catholic school girl.

We rode in a rented Bentley and drank strawberry wine coolers. They were disgusting. After the prom, more than twenty of us drove around on a chartered bus for several hours because we couldn�t get over the border into Canada.
Peter brought whippets - which is a very dangerous and stupid way to get high. A balloon is filled with the stuff that makes cans of whipped cream go pshhhhhhh (nice description). One sucks the contents of the balloon into the lungs. You become very light headed and dizzy. It lasts about 30 seconds. This was a stupid thing to do, but we were Catholic school kids. We did lots of stupid things just because we could.

16. Domine Fili Unigenite - Vivaldi (Gloria in D Major)
I went to a single-sex high school. It had its advantages and disadvantages. There was no gender comparison, but there was lots of competition. Our brother school was located down the street. During last period, many girls could be found in the lavatories primping in case they ran into a certain boy on the street after dismissal. That�s so ass.
During my senior year, I auditioned and was accepted into the high school choir hosted by the boys� school. This was my favorite piece to sing. It made me bounce. I regret being so badass that year. And I was mild in comparison to some of my badass friends. I wanted to take the music seriously but I didn�t.
Once I insisted on driving my own car to an away performance instead of taking the yellow bus with the majority of the choir. Jenny and I smoked cigarettes and got lost on the way. We were late for the performance. The choir director was more than disappointed in us. Jenny didn�t care, but I did. I stopped being so badass after that because I really didn�t want to be tough. I really wanted to be a choir geek.
I got to be a choir geek my freshman year of college. It felt good.

17. Everything Counts - Depeche Mode
This song reminds me of the many roadtrips I took with Fran in my white Mazda 323.
The best memory I have of this song is when we drove to Baltimore to visit our friend Chris. Chris had these lyrics pasted to his refrigerator to remind his roommates to keep their grubby paws off his things, �...the grabbing hands...grab all they can...� In Baltimore, Chris introduced me to the Indigo Girls CD for the first time. We drove around Baltimore and looked at sites where John Waters movies were filmed. Then we went back to Chris� apartment and I had a breakdown. It wasn�t the first one, but it was the last. I�d had one once before in the car with Fran after we went to Shakespeare in the Park. I just started to cry and couldn�t stop. I was sobbing. I couldn�t articulate why but I knew it was a safe place to release. I felt the same thing in Baltimore. I let the waterworks come. Fran and Chris just sat and held me until they stopped. There was no need for talking. They went out dancing that night and I stayed in the apartment, listening to music and thinking.
The next morning we drove to DC for the day. I thought I was the big expert on this city because I had been there several times before. Of course, we couldn�t find the car when it was time to leave. We walked around for over an hour looking for my car. Of course, Fran ran into a college friend. He can be in any city anywhere in the world and run into someone he knows. He�s a very engaging person. People love him.
Anyway, it was so f�n hot in DC that we spent the day walking around and jumping in every fountain we could find. We knew they were probably laden with gallons of urine, but we didn�t give a crap. It was so hot. Chris� European wannabe roommate Noel and his annoying French girlfriend Pascal joined us. I tried to talk to her in French, but she was having none of it. So Fran, Chris and I spent our time deliberately trying to annoy the lovebirds and being as obnoxiously American as possible. Kate Hudson would have been disgusted with us. F you, Kate Hudson.

18. Closer to Fine - Indigo Girls
The first Indigo Girls song I really loved. Thanks, Chris. I�m much more partial to �Galileo� now. Amy and I changed the lyrics from �Jonas and Ezekial� to �Jonas and Radicchio� but �Closer to Fine� will always be one of my favorite songs ever.
Amy, her boyfriend at the time Doug, Fran and I went to an Indigo Girls concert together. We hung around the stage door until they came out to say hey and get an autograph. Fran had just come out and was feeling the love that night. He ran up to Amy Ray and embraced her for the longest time. Then he talked her ear off. Amy and I were mute, but we did get to see the cool tattoo on her arm close up.

19. Chelsea Morning - Joni Mitchell
This song just reminds me of my first apartment. I lived with my best friend Amy. We shared a bedroom and clothes. Our share of the rent was $134 each. We listened to this song every morning while we got ready for class. Our apartment smelled like incense and macaroni and cheese.

20. Jacob and Sons - Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Amy and I listened to this song relentlessly in college. I converted Amy into a musical theater junkie when we shared an apartment in college. I wrote a huge ass paper for my Bible as Literature course comparing the text of the Bible to the lyrics of the musical. I think I got an A- on that paper.
Several years ago I saw Donny Osmond play Joseph in the show in Toronto. Twice. Rock on with that loincloth action.

21. Hello, Little Girl - Into the Woods
At this time, my favorite musical was Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim. I was regularly making theater weekend trips to New York City with Fran and Eric. In the car, we invented the game of changing words in the titles of musicals with filthy replacements. This game went on for days and days.
Sometimes we�d see the same show and other times we�s split up and see shows on our own. I pretended I was a cool New Yorker hopping on the cool subway and going down to the cool Village for the afternoon to see a cool off-Broadway show. Had I actually lived in New York on the salary I was making at the time, I�d have been living in a tenement and eating dirty cardboard for dinner every night.
I should also mention that Amy and I reinacted this song once at her parents� house. I was the wolf and she was Little Red Riding Hood. I wore a mink stole and a fedora. She had the hood and a little basket. The next day we went tubing off her parents� sailboat.

22. Giants in the Sky - Into the Woods
Fran kicks this song�s ass.

23. Tell Me It�s Not True - Blood Brothers
I saw this show in London with Michelle the year we lived in France. It is still my favorite musical of all time. Kiki Dee played the mom in the London show and I saw it again in New York with Carole King.
I�m a celebrity name dropper, by the way. I love celebrity encounters. Once I bumped directly into Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid on the street in New York. I wasn�t really paying attention to where I was going so after I realized who I just knocked into, I screamed, �Oh my GOD! I just bumped into Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid!� Smooth. I followed Dianne Wiest through a toy store where her daughter was getting her hair cut. I shook Richard Dreyfuss� hand and saw Glenn Close and Gene Hackman close up. I entered a theater once on the heels of Lucie Arnaz. I stalked Emeril Lagasse and had him sign all my cookbooks. I�m sure there�s more but I bet you�re rolling your eyes right now, so I�ll stop.
Yeah, so Blood Brothers. Best show ever.

24. A Song for You - The Carpenters
The Karen Carpenter Story is the best and worst made-for-TV movie ever. I have seen it almost as many times as I have seen Waiting for Guffman. I searched two cities for a CD or cassette that had this song on it in 1990. I found it at House of Guitars in Rochester, New York. I hold a microphone like Karen Carpenter because of this song.

25. Constant Craving - k.d. lang
This song was popular at a time in my life when I started to find my independence. I was living in an apartment with two friends, working and performing for a theater school and getting my master�s degree. I had a circle of friends that were really fun. I learned to make quilts and became interested in home repair projects. I started cooking. I became less of a girl and more of a woman.

26. Summer, Highland Falls - Billy Joel
I listened to Turnstiles so many times the summer of my twenty-second year, it was ridiculous. That was the year I made a really big decision that led to more big decisions which really weren�t the right decisions to make.

27. Waterloo - Abba
This song and the whole Abba Gold album remind me of Amy. I don�t know why.
Amy is the only person who can blatantly point out my flaws to me and make me laugh about it. I�ve become much less defensive and more honest thanks to her. There are two people on this earth who know almost everything about me and how I tick. She�s one of them. She gets me...good or bad...she gets me.

28. What Would Brian Boitano Do? - the boys from South Park
It�s just brilliant, that�s all. The song, the soundtrack, the whole f�n thing.

29. True Companion - Marc Cohn
I always wanted this.

30. Eh, Cumpari - Julius La Rosa
My entire family sings this song in unison at family functions. Now that we have a karaoke machine, it�s much worse because we�re amplified.

31. Babylon - David Gray
This song doesn�t really mean anything to me other than it�s one of the few CDs I bought because I heard the music and liked it. I�m a Suggestion Buyer. I buy CDs and books based on recommendations I get from friends or reviews. This one I bought on my own.

32. Feel - Robbie Williams
A recent recommendation. It fits.

33. Somebody - Depeche Mode
This song doesn�t really fit here chronologically, because I�ve loved it for a long time. I�ve been listening to music a lot lately. I like to sing. This is one of two songs I�ve been singing where my stagy Broadway voice doesn't come out. The voice that comes out is mine.

33 2/3. To Love Somebody - Clay Aiken
You just knew he�d be on the list, now. This was my favorite song he sang on American Idol, and in general, I think it�s a beautiful song. I like the Bee Gees. Bite me.

joeparadox at 2:26 p.m.

previous | next