How To Be a Killer
It was a scratchy disc, a grooved 45 rpm, its middle spangled with a circle of purple. My Mom had a few records from before I came along, but the one I remember most is Bobby Darin. Mack the Knife.
The shag carpeting in my bedroom was a garish mixture of bright blue and seventies green, but it was plush underfoot as I slipped my Mom’s Supreme Crooner on the turntable of my pink plastic record player. Set under a double window, the sunlight slanted through the crack in the roll down shades, almost like a spotlight.
A spotlight just for me.
I danced to the swinging beat of Mack the Knife in that shaft of light, starting a life-long love affair with smooth-sounding men. Humming along to the shark bites and cement bags and oozing bodies, I swirled and twisted, tumbled and turned, energetic enough to make the needle skip around the rotating surface. When it was over, I played it again and again, until my Mom came into my room and gyrated with me, joining hands and kicking feet. She sang the words, periodically interjecting warnings.
Don’t listen to the words, Andra. Just enjoy the sound.
Dip. Clap. Kick.
What’s wrong with the words, Mommy? He makes a shark bite sound cool.
Turn. Shuffle. Turn.
Well, this song is about a bad man who goes around stabbing people to death.
Shimmy. Shimmy. Sqquuueeeaaaaaakkkkkk.
What? Why would somebody make a song about that?
I stood there, panting in the silence, waiting for my mother to enlighten me on a profound mystery of life.
Sometimes, the beat gets us through life when all the words clash, when they’re hard, when they don’t make sense. The beat can be what drowns out all the rest of it, if you let your feet shuffle through to the other side.
What song has a profound meaning in your life?
This post is part of the series The Soundtrack of Life. If this is your first visit to the series, please click here and read the first installment. Thanks for your contributions and insights in the comments. They always enrich this blog, especially in a series like this one.
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
- Lean on Me « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Lean on Me « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- I Was a Young American « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Smile Though Your Heart Is Aching « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Worthless « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Hooked on Classics « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- The Very Thought of You « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Christmas in…..August « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- The Day the Music Died « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- A Kind of Magic « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- We Are Young « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Take Me Out « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Let There Be Peace on Earth « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
Music is powerful because it allows us to engage both side of our brains at the same time. Just the other day I listened to a song that I used to listen to as a teenager. Back then the song moved me differently than it does today. I still love the song but now the lyrics have a whole new meaning. Either way, it is still somewhat sad but hopeful with its lyrics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR6okRuOLc8
James, The Rose is just one of those songs. Profound truths in every lyrical line of it, things that bring tears to my eyes every single time I hear it. Where are the songs like it today? I’m sure there are some, but dang, I can’t think of any off the top of my head.
I can’t either Andra. I grew up listening to the 70′s and 80′s rock n roll. As a teenager I loved that music and did not pay much attention to the lyrics. Brick in the wall (was that the name of it?) had lyrics that I could identify with since school was not my favorite past time. As I grew older and started paying attention to the message in the lyrics I was horrified. Not all songs have a bad message but I feel like most of them do. That is why my taste in music changed radically in my early 20′s and I have not looked back since.
As a young teacher and coach, I was able to coach my wife’s cousin in football. He was a Junior in high school and a happy, carefree kid that was just fun to be around. He and two others were killed when their car came over a hill and crashed into a farm tractor crossing the road. This song was played at his funeral and to this day I cry every time I hear it.
This song always makes me wish I could play guitar. I never would’ve imagined it at a funeral, but what a powerful tune for one. I can understand why it makes you cry, Lou. It tears me up when I think of it that way. Thanks for sharing it here.
I had forgotten about this song Lou. The lyrics made me cry this morning especially when I think of lost loved ones. They do not make songs like this any more. So sad….
“Sometimes, the beat gets us through life when all the words clash, when they’re hard, when they don’t make sense”. LOVE that. When I dance and get caught in the beat, sometimes the words add to the experience… but it really doesn’t matter what the words are. They are often jumbled, or slightly obscene, or whatever.
But when I think of a song that has a profound impact on me, two come to mind and the words are very clear. They mean something to me for two different sets of reasons.
Somewhere by Barbara Streisand and The Dance by Garth Brooks
Here’s you some Barbra, Angie. I love that one, too. The West Side Story version is certainly a tear jerker.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/sy-30943064001/barbra_streisand_somewhere_official_music_video/
I just listened to it, to torture myself. I don’t even feel connected to the reason I liked it back then… but that song has a special way of digging down into the pit of my stomach.
Harry Chapin’s “Mr. Tanner.”
“Music was his life. It was not his livelihood. And it made him feel so happy, and it made him feel so good. He sang from his heart, and he sang from his soul. He did not know how well he sang. It just made him whole.”
Why I walked away from my music career before it ever began. Studying it was destroying the music.
One might say that about writing, too.
I used to play the piano competitively, and the more it became about that, the more my playing suffered. I still regret how much I let that skill go.
Every one of these responses is a gift to me. Thanks for sharing this one, Cam.
I always forget what a compelling performer he was. My parents saw him play once, and they still talk about it.
Another lovely memory…this song brought on a memory of my own.
Not many things can move me, or stop me in my tracks than music. It’s empowering, humbling, soul wrenching and calming. I think I’m going to go listen to some music now…
Come back and post something you’re listening to, Lori. I’d love to hear what this post inspired.
Well this is impossible for me but…
Let’s go with the top 5.
First Boulder to Birmingham by Emmylou – Not only is it a gorgeous song that flatten me when I first heard it but it was Lullybye number 1 that I would sing to Abigail (followed by Coat of Many Colors and Pancho and Lefty- lullybyes are where you find them)
Second – Stage Fright by The Band. Sang this before every show I ever performed in (infrequent) or directed (frequent)
Third – Ohio by CSN and Neil Young. Matched my anger then and still is relevant and well I guess you had to be there then.
Fourth – Bell Bottom Blues – Derek and The Dominoes -heartbreak
Fifth – Pregnant Again – Loretta Lynn. When we were in IVF hell this ironically got me through.
Sixth (cheating) The Message – Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five – soundtrack of our move to NYC.
Thanks for making me think.
Robert, I have to tell you that I’ve been looking forward to your submissions. When I saw that you were going to be on the Cape, I feared you would take a vacation from reading, and I learn so much about music when you talk about it. Glad this one stretched you (and me.)
Here’s Loretta, because we all know I’m partial to her.
1. How Great Thou Art (the Carrie Underwood version is wonderful) – it’s the first song I remember hearing in church as a little girl and also it was my grandmother’s favorite song
2. The Living Years by Mike and the Mechanics
3. Handel – Waterpipe in D
4. Imagine – John Lennon
There are so many but these will stop me in my tracks. As the day goes on, I am sure I will think of many, many more.
Jill, I can never, ever hear How Great Thou Art without tearing up. I love all of yours, but I’m going to put up an Elvis performance from 1977 (because I’m spending so much time in 1977 right now – long story). I can really use this one in the coming days of scribbling. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for inspiring something.
Love the Elvis version! Dan and I were eating at a restaurant in Black Mountain and Dan looks up and says “that’s George Beverly Shea”. Sure enough, it was – all 101 years of him still going out to eat. I wil always associate How Great Thou Art with him and the Billy Graham crusades I watched when I was young.
I’m glad to hear he’s still getting around.
So many songs, including many mentioned here. Our daughter Jennifer played The Rose on piano for school musical and we are BIG James Taylor fans. Lou’s story brought tears to my eyes. Our daughter Katy danced with her daddy to Sweet Baby James at her wedding. It is James’ friend Carole King’s song, Up on the Roof, that picks me up when I am down. James Taylor sings is, but, I first heard it from the Drifters, then a local group called the Cryan’ Shames.
When this old world starts getting me down
And people are just too much for me to face
I climb way up to the top of the stairs
And all my cares just drift right into space
On the roof, it’s peaceful as can be
And there the world below can’t bother me . . .
The Drifters is the most familiar version to me, because it is often associated with Beach Music in these parts, and people like to shag to it.
These posts always move me. I love reading how music has impacted others in this circle.
Thanks, Andra. The Drifters take me back to my teenaged summers for sure!
Oh I love music talk! You couldn’t give me too much of that ever! After your previous installment and memories of Pennies from Heaven I really started remembering the rides in the car with my parents and how much of “their” music I took in and loved. I have tunes (with all the words) you probably wouldn’t even know…The Wayward Wind, by Gogi Grant–you probably have to be my age to even know who that is, and tons of Nat King Cole. Every summer I go around singing “Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer.” I am sure I wasn’t more than 10, but I loved the music. There are so many of these memories flooding back I may have to do my own series, Andra!
Fun! Debra
I hope you will do your own series, Debra. I’d enjoy reading it.
I’m a massive Nat King Cole fan. In fact, he will feature in a post later this week.
Oh, some of us know Gogi Grant’s The Wayward Wind for sure, Debra! One of my all time favorites, too! And, growing up in the 40′s and 50′s, didn’t everyone sing in the car? We sure did!! I love it every time Andra does a post or a series about music — evokes terrific memories every time; hymns to classics and everything in between!
Love that song – just the way it builds.
Yeah. The build is great. I have a whole anthology of Bobby Darin songs now.
Oooh, you conjured up such atmosphere today, Andra. Great song.
I love: “A nighttingale sang in Berkeley Square.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTeiYN_Vq6E&feature=fvwrel
Lovely version, Kate. I will forever associate that song with Harry Connick Jr and my college days. Not a bad association for me. I still love him.
And, same era — The White Cliffs of Dover, You’ll Never Know…..
You know, much though I love music, I got completely sidetracked here by that picture, because let’s be real, I love books even more. What library is that?
Stockholm Public Library, designed by Gunnar Asplund. Definitely worth a visit when in Stockholm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Public_Library
Nothing like spinning along with spinning vinyl, eh? Getting a new LP and studying the cover while the turntable gave it whirl after whirl.
Summer Breeze is a song that always gets my attention . . . enough that I see the curtains hanging in the window on a Friday night.
It does have that blowing curtains kind of feeling, doesn’t it?
I could absolutely take over your comments with my response. Songs define the meanings in my life .I associate Mahler’s fourth symphony with being the only kid (I was seventeen) at a concert full of middle aged and beyond people. I associate Dire Straits Walk of Life with “how-I-lived-through-grad-school”. I hated Neil Young and his “Sweet Caroline” until I saw how it makes my daughter light up, and now I love it. Big band-anything brings my grandparents back to life for a song or two. My kids are the same way already, and I love it.
I love your kids’ taste in music. They are so funny and insistent in your writings, and they have awesome taste, even though some of it diverges from yours. But, that’s the fun of watching kids become who they are, I think.
One story. We were in Goodwill in Florida this past weekend because I wanted Sam some water shoes and the tourists will buy that stuff then dump it at Goodwill down there. Anyway, my kids charm people. It’s like a vocation. Caroline chats them up and Sam flirts outright. So Caroline was cleaving to this elderly lady with all these bizarre questions about her walker. “Why tennis balls? Why not some other kind?” And the lady was fielding all of it quite gracefully. “Because none of the other kinds are hollow and easy to cut in half”. And it was senior day, so the soundtrack was big band. “In the Mood” came on, and Caroline started humming along, and the lady was clearly thrilled with my daughter’s taste in music.
How can one NOT be happy with In the Mood? I think it’s great that she knows it.