When I was a pre-teen and young teen, growing up in the Wilds of Connecticut, I had a favorite radio station. KC101. It was the one that played Tiffany, and Debbie Gibson, and David Lee Roth’s goofy Van Halen, and the goofier post-Van Halen David Lee Roth. They played the Top 40 Countdown with Rick Dees every weekend, and I sometimes taped it. I know I taped the end of the year Countdown (1,000 songs? 500?) whatever year that Van Halen’s Jump was Numero Uno (I think it was 1984, and I was in 8th grade).
By the time I hit my junior year of high school, I hated KC101, and had graduated to I-95, which was all classic rock. So much so that mine and Beloved’s childhood music overlaps considerably – even though there are 11 years between us. Albums he bought in vinyl version on the day they were released are ones that I went out to get on tape because of my favorite songs that were playing on the radio.
As college neared, I was trying in vain to get the semi-local college stations on my car radio, so I could hear The Smiths and The Cure and other alternative faves. Without much luck. I had to revisit a lot of those artists as an adult. And those are still my radio stations of choice. Much easier now that I have colleges a stone’s throw away in every direction.
This year, J has started to listen to the radio. She’s listening to the greater Boston area’s version of KC101. Last night, in the shower, she started belting out “Good Morning Baltimore” from Hairspray, but then shifted to a song I didn’t recognize. When I asked her what it was, she was hesitant to say. Ended up she was singing “Skater Boy,” but refused to sing it for me again. (My google skills show me that Avril Lavigne first sang this song, but I think J was singing a newer version by this other band that is a little rockier). She refused to sing it for me, but was capable of writing the entire thing out. WTF?
E had only heard the song at dances (monthly now, in 7th grade). She likes it, but has determined that if they took the opening line (she was a girl, he was a boy — super creative, I know) and tweaked it to be “he was a girl, she was a boy,” it would make for a much more interesting song.
So my 7th grader still listens to Show Tunes and the Beatles, but my 5th grader is the pre-teen Zuska of years past.
you wouldnt have sung a song for YOUR mom either. Give the girl a Break! geez!!
lol