In late 1985 I left West Virginia. I was 22, almost 23, and going nowhere on the freakin’ bullet train. I’d dropped out of college twice, was working at a convenience store for $3.35 an hour, and had no idea how to proceed.
I’d been dating a girl named Kelly since high school, but it wasn’t going well. In fact, we’d broken up once already, and I was plunged into a depression that caused me to quit my job, and stop showing up for classes at Marshall University. I’d been doing well there, and enjoyed it. But, a little relationship trouble was all it took for me to throw it all away. It was one of the stupidest decisions of my life. There were others, but that one tops the list.
I devoted everything to winning her back, and was ultimately successful. But the problems remained. Kelly was sprinting toward college graduation, and I was working at the Dunbar Exxon with hillbillies and criminals. It didn’t take a fortune teller to see where this was heading.
So, in a state of desperation and panic, I moved to Greensboro, NC. I’d been offered a job in a grocery store there, paying $7 an hour. That wasn’t horrible money in 1985, and there seemed to be opportunities for advancement, as well. Maybe I could turn the shit-barge around?
Plus, this grand gesture was a clear demonstration of the lengths I was willing to go, to make things work. Kelly would have to be impressed, right? It would buy me a little time, at the very least.
Man, it was awful. Those first few months away from home were some of the darkest days of my life. I didn’t know anyone in Greensboro, my co-workers were no-nonsense, and I didn’t do very well at the new job. I had problems keeping my assigned aisle (the “cleaning aisle”) stocked. They were constantly running out of stuff, because I didn’t manage it very well. And the other guys treated me like the proverbial weak link in the chain.
So… on top of everything else, I was apparently too stupid to stock groceries. It was a real ego-boost, I’m telling ya.
And every night they cranked up a Top 40 radio station in that store, as I struggled to live up to the high expectations of Carl, or whatever the fuck, over in the pet food aisle. It seemed like they played the same ten horrible songs in an endless loop, and it was like Chinese water torture.
Two of those songs stand out in my mind, and both still have the power to conjure up some ancient panic from November/December 1985. In fact, all it takes is a few notes of either of them, and I’m instantly sad and ill-at-ease. They’re terrible songs, to be sure, but that’s not really the problem. For whatever reason, they possess the power to transport me through time, straight back to the heart of darkness.
Here they are:
Are there any songs that hold that kind of power over you? Do you ever hear some old tune on the radio, and it casts a dark shadow over your soul? If so, please tell us about it. Use the comments link below.
And that’s gonna do it for today, my friends. Thanks for coming here. I appreciate it, sincerely.
I’ll see you again tomorrow.
Now playing in the bunker
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‘Take my breath away’ = the horrible Holiday Inn bar next to the auto auction in Harrisonburg, VA.
Just a few notes of that crap and I’m 20-something again in a terrible uniform slinging longnecks and chicken wings to the locals.
I know this spot!! I had a terrible telephone conversation from right about there. It must be the Bermuda Triangle of I81.
Dream Weaver. I have to switch it off every time it comes on. Reminds me of a horrible period in the seventh grade when a uber-religious zealot girl convinced me that the world was going to end. Whenever I hear Dream Weaver, that anxiety pops right back.
“Dream Weaver” is deinitely a mournful sounding song that will zap your mood in a nano second.
Just seeing “We built this city” causes my gag reflex to kick. Not that it takes me to a bad place, the song is a damn ear worm. The other ain’t much better. Music in general in 1985 was crappy.
Anything from NIN Pretty Hate Machine. That was popular right in the darkest days of my first divorce.
I just heard that goddamned Mr. Mister song in a convenience store yesterday, and now you post this. What the hell – twice in one week? Too weird.
Can’t remember the name of it, but there is some old 70s song with a lead saxophone line in it, that when I hear it always reminds me of being a kid, stuck on the side of the highway with my Mom after the ’66 Pontiac LeMans we had broke down. (The song was playing on the radio).
Baker Street? I hate that one too
That’s what I was going to say: “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty.
That was the one. It also got played a lot in the discount clothing store (Gabriel Bros.) when I was working a summer job there. More bad memories.
The Foo Fighters version of Baker Street kicks a lot of ass. Maybe that will help cleanse your memory. It ain’t a bad song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DmIk05vmMc
My guess would have been “Turn the Page” by Bob Seger.
Yes. From our honeymoon. We drove from PA to FL, so we heard a lot of radio in about 1 1/2 weeks total. Waterfalls, by TLC and Seal’s Kissed By a Rose. We were married in 1995.
Aonther one, not a song, but a movie. The Lion King. When it was for sale, the pharmacy I worked at decided to have it playing ALL. OF. THE. TIME. I can now recite the lyrics, which my kids HATE. 😉
egads, I was working a manager trainee for Radio Shock and we had a guy working there who would always bring in his heavy metal head banger megadeath music and the older customers would cringe and grimace at the screeching and screaming. plus side was he had a hawt girlfriend but he treated her like crap. those were the days…
Jeff-
Remember that “We Built This City” has long been recognized as the WORST SONG EVER.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2004-04-18-worst-songs_x.htm
I cannot disagree.
That list assumes that pop music started in 1982. It didn’t.
jtb
The oldest song on the complete list was “The Sound of Silence” 1965, which I know, pop is still older than that.
I disagree. I believe that Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4 in E flat major is the worst song ever.
It’s pure rubbish.
I probably have one from every decade. Heck, probably three or four. But here are a couple of stand-outs: Bittersweet Symphony and Sister Christian. [Shudder]
Oh have I got a few. First and foremost Bob Seger’s “Turn The Page.” And this was way past when it was popular – when my dad was dying in the hospital in 2004. Every – and I mean EVERY GODDAMN TIME I would be driving home from the city, that song would come on. Depressing as hell.
“All I Need Is A Miracle” by Mike + The Mechanics – pretty much summed up my relationship with a married guy I was hopelessly in love with.
Black Sabbath “Ironman” the very first chords – that sliding guitar or whatever the fuck it is – TO THIS DAY (and I’m 51 years old) scares the ever loving bejesus out of me. And for a double shot of the heebie jeebies, I heard that followed immediately by Warren Zevon’s “Exciteable Boy”. Talk about the willies. I just felt the hair on my neck stand on end. Someone hold me!
I just received some terrible family news.
They’re coming to visit.
3 Doors Down – “Here Without You”
Pink – “Who Knew”
The Calling – “Wherever You Will Go”
All remind me of the nightmare I was with before my wife. No nostalgia involved nor sadness – I just cannot and WILL not listen to them on the radio (or on my iPod, where they still reside).
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass – “This Guy” reminds me of my parents and now that they are both gone……
I can’t even finish the thought.
This reminds me of not one song in particular but a nasty habit that drives me crazy and makes me want to punch the guy responsible in the face. At my pool league night there is some ass-hat that decides he is going to get his money’s worth out of the jukebox, which is one of those internet things that let you pick just about any song you want. Well this clown decides all he is going to play is the longest songs he knows, you know, so no one else can play any music and he gets more time for his $1.50. So he plays Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” and Alice’s Restaurant and Inna Godda Davida and we spend the next 2 hours listening to 3 damn songs. As Jeff would say…Grrrrr!
We had a guy like that in our pool league. He never understood why the juke box “accidentally” got unplugged whenever he used it. Eventually all the bars banned him from playing songs during league.
Good news! There is actually a setting on their new internet jukebox (the ones that look like a giant iphone and takes pictures) that will cut the song off at 5 minutes. The owner (who was also fed up with this guy) had it installed a couple weeks ago and when Echoes came on it stopped right at 5 minutes and went to the next song. I think the intro was probably still going. Bliss!
Sounds like a runner up for the 2013 Dick Punch Awards.
The list of finalists will be out in December.
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There are a couple songs that make me immediately change the channel, hit the off button, stab mute. But they are so well pushed away that I don’t remember the groups or song names. But, I can recognize those tunes in less than 3 notes and save myself some eargony.
Sarah McLaughlin’s “In the Arm’s of an Angel” instantly takes me back to 1999 when my mom died. I immediately change the station.
Don’t they use that in those awful, guy wrenching ASPCA abandoned animal commercials?
Ugh auto correct. Gut* wrenching.
Yes. I wonder how many people have shot themselves in the head while or after listening to that song. Good grief. talk about a depressing song!
Whenever that ASPCA commercial comes on with that suicide provoking song comes on I have to say “SERIOUSLY?!” out loud, whether I’m alone or not. “Eye of the tiger” makes me feel a little queezy in the gut when I hear it. No specific associations that I can remember, I was born in 81. Weird, huh?
In 1988, when I was pregnant and having terrible morning sickness, the song “don’t worry, be happy” was on constantly! I hated it from the very start, and it just got worse with every listen. To this day I get the same sick feeling like I’m pregnant all over again when I hear it.
Any Leonard Cohen song can theoretically induce suicide: the guy’s a genius. For me, his tune “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” takes me to a shiny-white sidewalk in a small college town on a spring-sunshine day in 1969, and the time travel collapses the state vector to reveal the tanks are all running on empty.
It induces not suicide itself, but a kind of suicide.
jtb
Oh, yeah, here’s the song (low quality from the Isle of Wight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFRL7DXinGM
Dick punch award goes to anyone who calls Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen “the Shrek song”.
I didn’t see the movie, but I’d hold off on the dick punch if they used the verse…
“There was a time when you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah”
Leonard took about five years to write the 80 verses from which he drew the four that found voice on “Various Positions”. He took a few more years to write the more personal verses that appeared on “More Best of Leonard Cohen”. By the time he toured, around 2000, and again in 2009-2011, he had combined the “David” version with the personal version and created his own kind of post-modern art.
I understand that Shrek was a pretty good kids’ movie, but I rather doubt it attained the celestial levels of Hallelujah.
I might have failed to mention that I’m rather a fan of Mr. Cohen’s music and have been for 45 years. I was hearing “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” being played on a small university radio station as I walked that sidewalk in 1969.
jtb
You. Rock.
Not sure who sings this and if this is the actual song that was in Shrek but at the 2:16 mark…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebtqoKHyHzk
*holds hand over wiener to ward off dick punch
The version in Shrek, it turns out, is the John Cale version, recorded for the Leonard Cohen tribute album, “I’m Your Fan”. Without having seen the movie, I can tell you that the John Cale version does contain the discussed verse (sung correctly, as opposed to the Rufus Wainwright version in this YouTube video).
As Stephanie notes, this doesn’t make Hallelujah the Shrek song. It isn’t. But if they didn’t mess with the John Cale cover, they did practice some form of honesty.
jtb
Oh Sherry by Journey (Perry)…mullet, tight jeans, and a crappy ex-gf…of course, Jeremiah was a bullfrog is a close second of you count pre-pubescent “OneDirection” 1960’s music.
You mean the song that starts “CINAMON GU-UMMM”
I think that song is actually titled “Joy to the world”.
Yes, it’s called ‘Joy to the World’ by Three Dog Night. The summer it was all over the radio, there was some kid across the back yard from us who played it about 40 times a day, loudly. It got old pretty fast, but I don’t despise the song now. It helps that very rarely hear it, and haven’t heard it in many years.
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My songs are “Don’t think twice, it’s alright” by Bob Dylan, followed by “Rest My Chemistry” by Interpol. Both are hard hitting in the extremely painful breakup department.
I think I only know one of the songs mentioned here, and I don’t object much to it apart from the artist being way overrated. This is good.
For me, anything by Poi Dog Pondering. It’s mostly expunged, but not completely. For a long time “Thoughts About Roxanne” by John Mayall was in the category, but a) it’s been long enough and b) it’s such a great song, that it’s OK now. Sorry, a sax features prominently.
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Oh, and regarding Further Evidence: Aaaaah! Not the “family cloth”!
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Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys are Back in Town” instantly transports me back to a college summer working overnights w/ a father-son school locker painting outfit. My job from 9pm til 7 am was scraping gum, tape and anything else h.s. kids would stick to the lockers, then wet sanding each one by hand.
The mildly retarded son (liked to sniff himself a little paint thinner on the side) had a boombox pegged to the classic rock station and they must have played that song at least 3-4 times overnight.
Hate that fuckin’ song. Not much of a fan a painting lockers either.
Opposite reaction. Anytime I here Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic zeros even though it was me and the devil womans song I can’t help but smile, and or dance.
I like the song but damn what a bunch of weirdo’s. Maybe I’m just too old to appreciate the hipster doofus movement.
Weirdos yes but a good toe tappin hippie dancing song.
oh. and go reds, and indians.
I second those go’s.
ANY song by Led Zeppelin or the The Rolling Stones (with the exception of “sympathy for the devil”) makes my skin crawl and I IMMEDIATELY start jamming buttons to get away from it.
Stones? Really? Even Let it Bleed?
Oh wow…didn’t see this one coming…
If no one has said it, Mustang Sally.
Go BUCCO’S !!! Happy Buctober everyone!!
You know I’m shooting you a stink eye right now, don’t you?
Ah well, good luck, you guys have done your time.
Fck the Pirates.
Back when Evanescence first hit the radio, about 2002, and they were extremely popular and vastly overplayed, I was in the midst of the worst soul-sucking depression of my life. I enjoyed their music, but the lyrics to every one of their songs are completely hopeless and just piled it on. Whenever I hear one now I start to feel the walls closing in.
The song “Call Me” by Shinedown brings me back to getting ditched by a guy I was desperately in love with. Hear the piano intro and it’s a punch to the heart all over again.
I already hate the next pop song that is about to become a big hit.
Shut it Joel, #41 is “I Didn’t Start the Fire”. 🙂
I apologize for that song. Someone should kick my ass for that one. I’m not asking, I’m telling you. Please kick my ass!
#73 is “I Go to Extremes”. God, he got worse as the years wore on and after Christie kicked him out of the sack.