The Song that Takes You There

This starts with a confession. Getting ready for work this morning, I heard John Cougar’s “Jack and Diane” and enjoyed it. A cloud of powder had settled settled across my nose and the miracle eye cream had just infiltrated fine lines and wrinkles. In an instant, that reality disappeared as the song convinced my head I was thirteen again with a world full of possibilities.

It isn’t a new phenomena but the power of the right song to transcend the continuum of time and space amazes me every time. One of Einstein’s theories of time provides for every instance of ourselves to continue to exist in each moment we’ve lived. A song with the perfect wavelength provides a wormhole that transports you directly back to one of those moments. As if admitting a moment of joy over “Jack and Diane” wasn’t enough, I’ve been contemplating what other songs work as mile markers like this.

Here’s a mildly unashamed walk through my life via the music that somehow defined it. If you snicker even once, you owe me your own confession in the comments…

“I Want a New Drug” by Huey Lewis and the News takes me back to a pivotal moment in my family life. We were moving from Ohio to Texas in the early 80’s. Part of the moving plan included my dad driving his 1979 Ford Mustang to Texas and then taking a Greyhound bus back to Ohio to drive the U-Haul. I was a lucky fifth-grader who was able to tag along for the adventure. I imagined myself to be a great writer and wrote a story about Pac-Man while we were on the road. When I hear the heartbeat of this Huey Lewis and the News song, I can imagine the wheels spinning down the road, the red vinyl, and my incredible journey….with my dad and Pac Man!

Ok, this one hurts a little. You might snicker but then you owe me your owe me!

I can’t hide my middle school self’s joy when “Footloose” gets time on the radio. A very good friend of mine died our freshman year of high school and I’m pretty convinced she would point to this 8th grade slumber party at her as one of the best times of her life. Our small group of friends danced and danced and danced in the living room that night. We played Light as a Feather with St. Elmo’s Fire playing in the background. When I hear this song I can still see all the stuff in her mother’s china cabinet bouncing back and forth with us as we…uh…cut footloose.

Yeah, I’m groaning over that one too but sometimes you just have to embrace it.

And the Beastie Boys’ “Paul Revere” is an instant celebration. I still know all the words to it too. A friend and I spent most of our time in Algebra trading lines from Beastie Boys songs. We were trying to figure our lives out and it was easier to imagine this song would reveal a secret than it was to think Algebra would have anything to do with it.

I still don’t understand how that cynical student became a teacher but I did. Rancid’s “Time Bomb” takes me straight back to those first three years of teaching when I was on the verge of becoming a statistic. 50% of our new teachers leave the profession within the first three years. I understood why and Rancid helped me funnel the rage through their frantic and driving music while I made sense of my adult life.

Before this becomes “This is Your Life the Mixtape,” let me ask…what song takes you there?