October 17, 2007
By "there," I mean back.
Back to high school, adolescence, first kisses, clammy-hand-holding, dances where the guys and girls line up across the room from each other as if an invisible wall separates them.
For me, I'll always remember Stairway to Heaven as the backdrop for my first real kiss, courtesy of a guy named Freddie.
And those first ringing chords of You Shook Me All Night Long immediately transport me to middle school, when I discovered heavy metal and bought my first record album.
My senior prom theme song was Almost Paradise. And the theme for one of our fall dances was I'm So Excited, though we wanted Let's Go Crazy. The nuns wouldn't let us use anything by Prince (even though we tried to explain that it had nothing to do with sex…and little did they know what I'm So Excited was really about).
Melt With You was a fraternity party staple in my college days. And we all listened to Where the Streets Have No Name.
So, what takes you there?
October 17th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Oh for me I think it was Mony Mony by Billy Idol. We had the “alternative lyrics” that would get shouted during the chorus and inevitably got the song shut off LOL! End of the Innocence was a big song around that time too. I was thankful that it didn’t end up being our grad song.
October 17th, 2007 at 8:48 am
80’s music and 80’s films always take me right back. Let Pretty in Pink or Ferris B’s Day Off, etc. pop on the television and I’m back in the day!
October 17th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Indigo Girls, Nivana and Pearl Jam take me back to the U of Delaware so easily and U2 & C & C Music Factory (dont ask) work wonders for high school
October 17th, 2007 at 10:03 am
I guess the “biggies” would be Chicago 17, Madonna’s Like a Virgin, and Prince’s Purple Rain. As far as movies go, the classics Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, and St. Elmo’s Fire pretty much do the trick for me. I’m an 80’s girl all the way.
October 17th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Stairway to Heaven is a big one for me too. Also, anything from Phantom of the Paradise.
October 17th, 2007 at 11:05 am
The song Crazy For You by Madonna was playing when I got my first kiss from a dreamy 8th grade boy named Andy Hill. I still do an “inner sigh” when I hear it.
October 17th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Wow, so many of these are the same for me. Careless Whisper totally takes me back. Prince’s Purple Rain and his Diamonds and Pearls. Flashdance, remember her dancing around in her leg warmers and that off the shoulder sweater. I so wanted to do that! LOL
October 17th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
oh PS: Sparky - isn’t C&C Music Factory… Everybody Dance Now, come on move …if so, I remember it well! LOL
October 17th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Well, I’ll probably really date myself but I’ll have to say the band KISS. Anything by them — or just the sight of them — will take me back. A friend and I saw them in concert in our hometown and then were bold enough to actually go to the hotel to try to meet them — this was back when no one had seen them without make-up — but we did! I watch Gene Simmons’s reality show FAMILY JEWELS and I just laugh my butt off the entire time — but it has more to do with my memories than anything about the show itself.
October 17th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Motley Crue’s home sweet home as the song that separated me from the rest of the 8th grade class. They were listening to rap and I requested home sweet home…big mistake LOL High School songs…anything by Scorpions, Metallica, GUNS ‘N ROSES! I made it back stage to try and ‘meet’ Slash….ended up being vomited on by a roadie…guess I wasn’t meant to be a groupie lol
Breakfast Club and Say Anything are the movies that send me right back though!
October 17th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
“I. Do. Love you. (dah da dah da da)….STILL”
October 18th, 2007 at 12:24 am
We’re gettin old aren’t we, rollin over the top (40) and startin the long coast. I have been thinking back to those days, those dances too, and I remember the Prom very well. I remember melt with you, but Tainted Love always takes me back to the HS gym, the patrolling nuns, the wait for the pick up after the dance. I grin. As Neil Simon’s movie put it, I probably don’t really love all those things as much as I think, but I was young, free, and having a hell of a time. I loved every damn one of those songs, girls, guys! “There” was a great place, just for that reason alone.
October 18th, 2007 at 2:51 am
Wow, so many of these songs are the ones that take me back, being a teen in the mid to late ’80s too. They played “Back in Black” at all our school dances.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:07 am
REM. Seriously, if you just mention Michael Stipe, I turn into a lovelorn teenage girl, wailing earnestly along with “So. Central Rain.”
Same with The Cure. Gives you a horrible, graphic picture of what kind of kid I was.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:45 am
In addition to all the ones mentioned above I would add:
Workin for the Weekend by Loverboy
Only Time Will Tell or Heat of the Moment by Asia
Every Breath You Take by Police
Slow dancing to:
Hello by Lional Richie
True by Spando…. somebody!
Endless Love by Lional Richie again I think
I could go on and on!
October 18th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Sigh.Old REM is more like a college revisit than highschool. Flock of Seagull’s and anything from the Rocky Horror Picture Show brings highschool right back.
My Prom song was AWFUL:Time for a Cool Change. URG.
October 19th, 2007 at 10:58 am
I was in college at the University of Georgia when REM was first getting started — they practiced in an old church right around the corner from where I was living.
October 21st, 2007 at 9:50 am
Suey - Spandau Ballet (I’m sorta ashamed that I know that one)!