The kind and charming HollyGL over at Remedial Rumination recently posted a meme about songs that have made an impact on her life. I don’t do the meme thing myself, but I was inspired enough by her post to take a look back at some of the songs that have made me (and I use the term loosely) the man I am today…“The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze” as performed by The International Silver String Submarine Band: Or as they were better known, the Little Rascals. Although I’m not sure when during that long malaise that was my childhood I first heard this song, I never forgot it.
This performance had it all: shabbily dressed urchins playing homemade instruments and singing off-key, a catchy tune and lyrics about some lecherous aerial acrobat who’s out to steal your girl. What more could a music loving kid ask for?
“Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas: I think I was just starting junior high school when this song came out. Whenever it played on the radio my pals and I, suffering no doubt from some sort of hormonally induced brain damage, would start to flail spastically about, performing what we were convinced were genuine kung fu moves. What a time it was…the joy…the laughter…the broken bones.
"Muskrat Love" by Captain & Tennille: Unfortunately, not every song had a positive impact. After all, in life you have to take the bad with the good and for me this song was as bad as it gets. The cloying melody filled my ears as the saccharine lyrics burned an image of horny aquatic rodents into my brain that would take years of therapy to remove.
"Funky Cold Medina" by Tone Lōc: Probably the greatest song about a transsexual since the Kinks recorded “Lola” way back when…ok, it’s probably the only song about a transsexual since “Lola”. No wait…I forgot about Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like A Lady”, although to be honest, when I first heard that song I thought Steven Tyler was actually singing about himself.
Anyway, in "Funky Cold Medina" there’s a line that goes ‘I don't fool around with no Oscar Meyer wiener’ and why no rival hot dog company ever used that in a commercial is something I’ll never understand.
"Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot: This could be the most personally meaningful song on the list for me. When I heard Sir Mix-a-Lot utter that immortal line ‘I like big butts and I can not lie’…it was like he was reading from my diary.
Whew! I think I need to go lie down… these trips down memory lane are exhausting.
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