Back in the Day Buffet

Today's a short one. I'm sickly and tired, and I soooo want to take an entire bottle of Nyquil and sleep for 85 bajillion hours straight. After reading my friend noxy's posts the last couple days, I feel inspired to write about songs that I loved back in the day when I was a little kid in Texas. Little Mingo almost always listened to whatever mom listened to. I therefore grew up loving a lot of seventies music, and this has given me a deep seated love for the Bee Gees in particular. Some of my best memories were of me and my mom, driving along country back roads, the windows UP because damn, Texas weather is HOT and no one went without air conditioning. Music would be blasting, and me and my mom would be singing along to Brown Eyed Girl and All My Ex's Live in Texas. However, my love for music has always been wide and varied, and thinking back, these are a few songs I ALWAYS rocked out to.

Deee Lite's Groove is in the Heart was an annoying, psychotic song, and I absolutely loved it. I remember watching the music video in our apartment, dancing along and singing my little heart out. I KNOW i watched it all the time, any time I could find it on TV, so I must have driven my poor mom insane. Ha. Payback for all the John Denver I was subjected to: "Thank God I'm a country boy!"

Another song I listened to was Cher's "The Shoop Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)."

I watched the movie Mermaids, and the only thing I liked about the movie was this song. Actually, the movie began my deep loathing of all things Cher. I freakin HATED Cher in that movie, I thought she was the worst mom in creation. She was a freakin slut bucket, always beginning and ending "relationships" with countless men, and forcing her kids to move every time her lousy love life tanked. Bitch. AND THEN she flirts with the guy her fragile and impressionable teenage daughter is in love with and actually KISSES him. Mother of the Year for that one. But I'm getting sidetracked by my disgust. Anyhoo, I loved the song, and even at one point was planning to sing it onstage with a few girls in high school. We were going to perform in our annual talent show, which in retrospect I'm glad didn't happen. Our high school was brutal back in the day, we would probably have gotten jeered off the stage.

As a Tejana, I listened to TONS of Selena. Everyone did. In fact, speaking of talent shows, I remember one in maybe first or second grade where 85 thousand girls all sang a Selena song. There was a guy performing too, but I'm fairly positive he sang and danced that one song in the movie The Mask with Jim Carrey. I'm pretty sure he had maracas and everything. But anyhoo, it seemed like the entire world was immersed in Selena's songs. I loved so many of them and listened to them over and over that I actually still remember almost all of them. I have too many favorites, but I KNOW I listened to this one constantly.

I always thought Selena's "No Me Queda Mas" was beautiful. I was a little girl who didn't understand spanish, and yet this song always gave me chills. It was like I could hear the pain and yearning come through her voice when she sang. I still remember when I found out she had died. My aunt had come to pick me up from grade school when she told me. I remember feeling incredibly devastated, as though I had personally lost someone close to me. I had listened to her music so long it had become a part of me, and I cried when I realized the person behind it was gone. For ages afterward I wasn't able to see the Selena movie with Jennifer Lopez. Actually, I hated J-Lo cause I felt she wasn't good enough to play Selena. In J-Lo's defense, I would have hated anyone who had taken the role. I finally saw the entire movie through not too long ago, and being the incredibly over emotional person I am, I teared up at the end when she dies and they go through clips of the actual news footage, with fans crying and her songs playing. I still don't quite understand the emotional pull behind it. I think it's a regional thing. In the area I lived in, EVERYONE was a Selena fan. A lot of less well off people found her an inspiration, because she had been living proof that a poor Latina girl could make it out on top. 

So these are some of the songs I loved back in the day. I have a cousin who loved her gangsta rap, so I actually liked some Tupac, and for a while there, my most listened to CD was Pulse. The CD itself didn't even come out until 2001, but it had a lot of songs on it I listened to back in the day, for example Bizarre Inc's I'm Gonna Get You and Rhythm Is A Dancer by Snap! Ohhh yeah. That's the stuff. Hostess. =)