Song of the Hour: wait.. ok…
in honor of this post, I’m going to admit it. I’m listening to an acoustic version of Matchbox 20’s "Rest Stop". Music lovers, I apologize. But I am. And I love that song. It suits my mood, and I think it’s a great song and there. I said it. Don’t judge me too harshly.
As a side note, I’m not sure my blog titles as of late have been appreciated for their literary quality, most of them having been taken from somewhere in the depths of Moby Dick. I’ve moved on. We’re on Invisible Man now. 
Anyway, this is a response to the brilliant admissions of Mr. Soto on his post about his Important High School Albums list. Mine are somewhat embarrassing, though I am happy to admit that at least GWAR isn’t on my list. He knows the backgrounds and histories of every band to which he’s ever listened. I do not. Either the singer was a hot icon of rebellion and outrage, or s/he wasn’t. It’s that simple. That’s what mattered then. Ah… youth. Anyway, I can only annotate the top ten list with the strongest images and memories associated with said albums. Hopefully, they’ll be familiar to some of you, and you’ll be inspired to compose your own. Ok.
Top 10 Most Important Albums from high School
1. August and Everything After, Counting Crows
I’m with Sara in her blue Tempo in the Kaiser Permanente parking lot. it’s dark outside and we’re listening to "Anna Begins" over and over and one of us is shaking, I’m not sure which… I was never sure which of us was shaking when something shook. I’m in Andy’s brown minivan and we’re singing "Round Here" or "Mr. Jones". I’m in Owen’s ancient Honda prelude (which he totalled while we were skipping school I think) and we’re listening to "Time and Time Again" on a mix tape someone at Wellspring made him, all the songs having something to with Time. This was a car album.
I still know every word on the album, and it’s one of the most powerful memory triggers I have.
2. Live Through This by Hole
I’m in Suzy’s green car (honda?) with the windows down and the speakers blaring and we’re driving by Cameron village, singing.screaming so loud we’re getting hoarse. Of course we’re chain smoking. We had probably just bought camels at peace street market for $.99 a pack.
The whole gang is at the Hole concert at the Ritz and O & I are tripping and there were velvet curtains and I knew Courtney better than I knew myself, and I understood, man. I knew the poetic draw of self-destruction and her music was the incarnation of an era and I felt it. Still know every word on the album, and I get hoarse just thinking about it. I went to school in Olympia, where everyone’s the same…
3. Grace by Jeff Buckley
It’s late and I’m at the Johnson house in the middle of Sara’s waterbed between Sara and Amanda and Amanda is programming the cd player for us to fall asleep to, (the CD player was a going away present from the rochester crew, I remember that), and Amanda’s trying to program #5 "So Real" and Sara doesn’t want her to because it’s too harsh to sleep to or something and I remember feeling like I was lying on a bed full of exasperation instead of water, and we fell aslpeey staring at the posters on Sara’s ceiling arguing about who was hotter Sting or Bono.
"Hallelujah" and "Last Goodbye" in the background of some angst or break-up and my god the sheer capacity for sadness and sarcasm and bitterness I had back then. Drugs and midterms and Christmas trees; Andy’s basement; Amanda’s attic room and band covered walls, there’s no end to this album, none whatsoever. It’s now in the jukebox at cup a joe where I do all my homework and it’s amazing I get anything done at all for the incessant onslaught of yesteryear. I could go on forever, but I think I already have.
4. Ten by Pearl Jam
It’s too pervasive to even pinpoint. I wouldn’t know where to start… Enloe’s parking lot, drawing in the sand with a stick. Every song on the album has a novel in it. What I remember most is Sara having the CD and I not knowing how to handle CD’s and ruining it and her being pissed but not saying anything about it… I remember I bought her a new copy for her birthday and subsequently borrowed it and she never saw it again. I still have it in my closet. And I still know every word. I think every angsty moment of the early 90’s has at least one pearl jam song attached to it. Every one.
And journals, my god, the journals.
5. Indigo Girls
This is all boys. Andy mostly, lots of singing– skipping school, Japanese camp, Salons at people’s houses that I didn’t fit in with… Ian and Brendan and Catherine and Farrah. More of Andy’s basement. Owen’s Saturn at the beach graduation weekend, me alone in his car being retarded listening to "touch me fall" about a zillion times in a row sobbing like the absolute legend of drama queens.
God, looking back I feel like I did nothing but ride in cars for 3 years… is that just me? At a quarter a mile for some, it must have been costly.
wait… Suzy’s father’s wood-burning hot tub. Chuck. Drugs. Indigo girls… it’s fuzzy. anyone remember that? Anyway.
6. Nevermind by Nirvana
It was there. it was everywhere. And while I thought Kurt to be one of the greatest icons of the era as well, secretly I never liked the music. I wouldn’t admit it, that would be sacrilegious, but I’m comfortable admitting it now. I didn’t like this album. it has since grown on me, but then, I hated it. Ah. I feel 20 pounds lighter. Now you know.
7. Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos
I put it off as long as I could, but it would be a lie to leave it out. I think Sara was Tori and I was Courtney in "Hardcore" the movie of our lives. But this album, Jesus. It’s its own story. Most prominent memory of course being "Everybody Else’s Girl" and Christine Promin, Ellie Fetterson and Telena Chavis as Sara and I participated in "Hear my Roar" a student written production, at which she and I joined in an interpretive dance of the above mentioned song… and if i remember correctly it was ghastly. The hallway outside the drama room is the setting for much, much drama of the sort only high school drama clubs can produce. Wow. Just wow. Secretly, I still have a couple Tori songs on my mp3 player for sheer nostalgia amusement purposes. I’m not getting into any more Tori-montage memory moments because I think I would be embarrassing far more people than just myself. point is, it was there and epitomizes certain aspects of my High School experience.
ok, I’m getting pressed for time. Gonna have to stop rambling…
8. Automatic for the People / Out of Time by REM
Ashely Simons, one of my only friends in 10th grade until I got to know Andy better. After that, what I see is Owen dancing like Micheal Stipe in his room stepping over massive piles of cd’s, comic books, and black-ink drawings. Often in a skirt.
Sriving (yet again) with sasha and amanda bouncing along tripping over each other trying to line up the words to "it’s the end of the world as we know it" and laughing freely at our missteps. pleasant memories, that one.
9. Fuzzy, Mighty Joe Moon by Grant Lee Buffalo
Channing eating cereal. Sara borrowing money from Channing. "Rock of Ages" and angsty religious guilt. A haunting voice in the darkness that I loved. It saturated, it was everywhere we were. It makes me think of breathing, of taking a minute to slow down and think, pausing the crazy tailspin and talespin that day-to-day life was for us. I remember putting on make-up before Jason picked me up and asking myself what the hell was wrong with me. I’m not sure if that was the music, but it’s what
I see when I think of it…
10. Stay, Far Away So Close by U2
I had just starting smoking. I was stealing Salems from my Uncle who had moved in with us b/c he was sick. Dying, actually. I’d wait until everyone was asleep then I’d open my window and sit in the sill with "Stay" playing, staring at the ground 12 feet down… trying to keep the smoke out of room. These are strange memories. Alone, smoking, Bono’s voice, that song. Always that song. A ritual of solitude.
I remember Sara and Chuck came to bail me out once, tossing rocks at my window and we sat in the middle of my suburban street and that had never, ever happened to me before– I’d never had friends like that. Wonderful people, them.
Some of these are even more important than those listed above, but I just haven’t the energy right now, and you must be sick of reading my now. So, for what it’s worth, I’m sure you’ll recognize the times if you were there:
Jane’s Addiction, James, Smashing Pumpkins, Neil Young, Soul Asylum, Phantom of the Opera, Violent Femmes, Beautiful South, The Cranberries, 10,000 maniacs, NIN, Patsy Cline, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Sinnead O’Conner…
and if I’m missing something monumental, please, please remind me. My memory’s swiss cheese and I’m amazed I can even remember this much.
more later, of a more modern theme,
love.
