Music Roulette 9 ~ Jagged Little Playlist

It is common for music to trigger involuntary memories. Without trying, a song plays, and a recollection pops up without trying. Music shows up during everyday activities, and we pay it no mind. We listen to music while commuting, working out, doing chores, and the mind wanders and old memories come wandering out. I’d like to evoke some autobiographical music encoded memories. Time for another round of music roulette. Let’s see what memories emerge from this random playlist of uncurated songs.

1. Not The Only One :: Amerie

Starting strong with Amerie. I listened to this song a lot on my last deployment. This was the first half of the marriage, when it nearly ended the first time. In retrospect, I spent a lot of time angry and pissed off at mr horrible. Listening to songs like this one on repeat to express through song my inner frustrations. This song still hits the same way it did 21 years ago. The lyrics are key.

2. Heathens :: Twenty One Pilots

Ok, who didn’t think this was the best thing from Suicide Squad? The movie was mid, but this song was legit the hit of 2016. I know I played the shit out of it on repeat driving down the highway. This was in the initial work-from-home years, so the only time I got to function in public was driving to run errands, since everything in Texas is “driving distance”. I recall we saw this movie at the Alamo Draft House, and I found the song on Spotify to play on the drive home at midnight down GBT.

3. Gasoline :: Britney Spears

Any self-respecting ex-club-goer has at least one Britney song in their rotation. I have several, lol, but this one is a favorite. Even if my club days had been long behind me, I pretended in my car, blasting songs that made me wish I was in another time and place instead of trapped in a loveless marriage, a shell of my former self.

4. Born To Die :: Lana Del Ray

This song takes me back to the brief span of time when we first arrived in Texas after the divorce and we were living with my brother. It is a tragic mix of depressing freedom. Being at loose ends while simultaneously being as miserable as I could ever imagine being. Keeping it together with bandaids and bubble gum, trying to be a mother for my sons, while grieving the loss of more than a decade of my life. Looking back on it, I don’t know how I did it. How I managed to get up and get anything done like taking my sons to school. Enrolling them. Moving across the country. Any of that? Grit and determination. This album is steeped in this era of my life and will always take me back.

5. When You’re Next To Me :: Mitch & Mickey (A Mighty Wind)

For a mockumentary, the album of this movie soundtrack is off the hook, if one can say that about Folk music. And this is my favorite song on the album. Actually, the whole album is great for sing-alongs in the car on road trips. Which we did plenty of, at least when my sons were younger. This movie was a favorite that would play in the living room, sometimes just as background noise, as we went about our day at home when the kids were little, especially if it was just me at home with the kids because the ex was on deployment.

6. Love Like We Do :: Edie Brickell & New Bohemians

First of all, I remember when her band was The New Bohemians. I also remember getting this cassette as a birthday gift. Wow. That takes me back to middle school and my jean jacket covered in ink drawings and pins. I was obsessed with this album. I played it out on cassette. And then eventually upgraded to CD as all music-obsessed Gen Xers do. Now I’m streaming this song. That’s what we do.

7. Next Girl :: The Black Keys

Probably the last good year I spent in Virginia. This song was on a CD playlist – one I burned for road trips. By this time, I was low key fed up with mr horrible. Even if I didn’t know it consciously, it was coming through in other ways. Like song lyrics. I mean listen to it. You’ll see what I mean. My next girl will be nothing like my ex-girl? Ok, not real subtle there. I was trying to tell myself something and I clearly wasn’t listening. Took another two years and some constant play of this song among others.

8. Ain’t No Chimneys in the Projects :: Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings

I didn’t hear this song until I was an adult. However, this is a literal thought process I had as a child in Connecticut. See, Santa, for me, was an American construct. There’s no “Santa” putting presents under a tree in Guatemala. My first Christmas in Connecticut, we were living in an apartment, and there was no fireplace. And I wondered if Santa was something that happened to other people. Or, was Santa make-believe and not really real? Well, I think at the tender age of 7, I was convinced that the magic of Christmas was something that only happened to other people.

9. Venus Man Trap :: Veruca Salt

This album is super underrated. And the lyrics of this song are crazy cool. Something about the melody reminds me of the way infatuation feels super crazy. College was a crazy time. This was a couple of years before I joined the Navy. I dated, but I wasn’t in love with anyone. I wouldn’t call myself a man trap in those days, but I wasn’t above trapping a man and then setting him free. Had several guys I “dated” who didn’t last long beyond their initial usefulness. Once they started to get clingy, I let them go.

10. Temperature :: Sean Paul

I literally remember when this song came out it was such a big deal. It was THE song of my last deployment. I had it on my iPod and played it constantly when I was at the gym on the boat. Those were the days. Club 48 (IYKYK) and the VIP list. Those were THE days. What a time to be alive.