Music brings the memories back like nothing else can. With certain songs, you are able to relive a moment. At least I am.
I'm not talking about the time I went out and bought a bunch of beads and feathers to braid into my hair because Stevie Nicks wore them in the "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" video. Or how The Rolling Stones Tattoo You album has permanently taken over one-third of my brain.
I'm talking about songs that come on the radio and suddenly, you see things. You smell things. You feel things. Things like this.
"I Want To Know What Love Is" - Foreigner.
Albert was one of my first real boyfriends. I was in 8th grade and he was in high school. He wore the tightest parachute pants you ever saw. He was from Cuba and had a really slight mustache and the blackest/waviest hair you ever saw glisten in the Florida sun.
Albert and his best friend, Gaby (yup, a guy named Gaby) would drive to my house in Gaby's El Camino. Albert was interested in taking our relationship to the next level... I had let him know (many times) that I had no plans of giving anything up to him, even though things could get pretty hot and heavy in the back of that El Camino.
When he and Gaby weren't blasting "Feel For You" by Chaka Khan or talking to each other in Spanish, he would sing me the chorus of this song, a little mockingly, especially the "I want you to show meeeeeee" part, or sometimes he'd sing that line to Gaby as I was heading to the fridge to get a Fanta. I never showed Albert what love was, even though he wanted me to real bad.
"Pressure" - Billy Joel/"Lights" - Journey.
I took an aerobics class with my mom in 1989. We wore leotards, leg warmers and headbands because we were cool and fashionable like that. The instructor was a pint-size aerobics queen who took us through a routine to Billy Joel's "Pressure" that could have been its own Broadway production. After it was over, I always felt like I was going to have a heart attack and die, but I knew I was going to be OK because the big cool down routine was coming up soon.
"Lights" by Journey would come on the boom box, we would stretch, lay on the floor and exhale as the instructor told us to let all of our worries lift up off us "like the San Francisco fog." Because I think "Lights" is about San Francisco? There's that "sun shines on the bay" part? Thanks, aerobics instructor, for almost killing me, and for teaching me something about geography.
Anything off of the Sports album by Huey Lewis and the News.
Huey Lewis and the News were in town, I'm in 7th grade, and for some reason I lie to my friends, telling them not only am I going to the concert (lie), but that I have backstage passes to the concert (lie), because lead guitarist Chris Hayes was a family friend (complete BS lie). The night of the concert I was actually babysitting at the Marzak's house, the one where I got in trouble for putting a light bulb down the garbage disposal.
If you asked me who I liked better, Huey Lewis or Chris Hayes, I would say Chris Hayes. I even had a nickname for him. I called him "Peanut." Why? Who the hell knows. I made my little brother Mike call him Peanut too. But come on... look at this guy and tell me you didn't have a crush on him and call him Peanut.
I called my best friend Stacey from the Marzak's house after I turned the television up real loud and got those Marzak kids to scream like lunatics, so I could pretend I was calling from a payphone at the big show. I went on how great the concert was, and how I couldn't wait to see old Peanut afterwards.
So whenever I hear "I Want A New Drug" "The Heart of Rock and Roll" or my favorite Huey Lewis song, "If This Is It" I always feel kind of bad for lying to my best friend in 7th grade about going to a stupid concert.
Bust mostly I think about how ridiculous it was that those Marzak kids -- one who was a toddler -- had to pretend to be at a Huey Lewis concert.
Lori's website, Drawn to the 80s, is where her 5 year old draws the greatest music hits of the 1980's. This post originally appeared on her blog, Once Upon a Product, where she writes about important things like beauty products, food, music and her Mick Jagger obsession.