Today’s my birthday. I’m not pandering (I get enough well-wishes on Facebook) but it makes for a happy coincidence. Everclear, who does my favorite song, is performing tonight at a local festival.
I’m so dating myself as a Gen Xer by admitting my favorite song is Santa Monica, but there you go. Pandora describes Everclear thusly:
Though Everclear’s Northwestern grunge-punk style was hardly revolutionary when the band rose to popularity in 1995, the trio’s hook-ridden songs and Art Alexakis’ “us against them” lyrics were taken to heart by bored Gen-X teens.”
Guilty. I was in my 20s and a newlywed, but the ennui sure felt real. In fact, the song rose to be my favorite 20 years ago today.
Deal Dude and I did a lot of traveling before we were Deal Mommy and Deal Dad. So much so that we spent more of our first five years married apart than together. One stretch had Deal Dad working for six months in Melbourne, Australia. On June 10, 1997 I boarded a flight to visit him.
The Qantas flight connected through LAX and I built in an 8 hour layover. It was just enough time for me to hop a bus to, you guessed it, Santa Monica. As the sun set on the pier, I rode the Ferris Wheel and sang my heart out:
I am still living with your ghost
Lonely and dreaming of the west coast
I don’t want to be your downtime
I don’t want to be your stupid game
With my big black boots and an old suitcase
I do believe I’ll find myself a new place
I don’t want to be the bad guy
I don’t want do your sleepwalk dance anymore
I just want to see some palm trees
I will try and shake away this disease
We can live beside the ocean
Leave the fire behind
Swim out past the breakers
Watch the world die
It is a frozen moment of my life…and a terrible Gen X cliche. The only thing missing was John Cusack standing at the bottom with a Boom Box held high. But there ya go.
Fast forward 20 years later and Everclear is a nostalgia band on a Mom Rock tour. Which makes sense as I am the Deal Mommy. But in my head I’m still high up on that ferris wheel…and tonight I’ll be singing my heart out.
Does your favorite song take you to a specific point in time? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
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When my first child was born I used a cd of soothing music quite often to calm her down and we would dance around the room or rock to it daily. I have found myself transported to those moments at odd times…. like when a song was played by a piano player in a bar and brought me to tears.
Totally get it.
As much as I want to LOL at your favorite song, I admire you openness about something that cheesey. Good for you! Rock on!
Oh, I own the cliche! Everclear did not disappoint live- I woke up hoarse the morning after the concert.
I also un-ironically like ABBA…although I prefer them in Spanish.