As I was sitting in the cafeteria during lunch hour today, I noticed that the music selection has been veering towards the 80s this week.
“Did you notice the music?” I asked my one co-worker who has transferred to the new office with me. (So yes I am now surrounded by actual people every day at work. More about that later…)
“What about it?”
“It’s music from our youth!”
It was odd because I believe the average age at this office is 25 and the average weight is 125 lbs.
My Co-worker raised his eyebrow with suspicion.
“Come on. I listened to the same music that you listened to! There was this one English-speaking radio station in Taiwan that was a left-over from the American military occupation, and they played all the popular English songs all day long. Top 40. The best!
That was THE radio station that we all listened to when we were in college. Because it was cool.
Remember making mixed tapes? Remember there was no CD and the only way to get any music was to record songs off of the radio? How you had to press RECORD right at the second when the DJ started the song? And then you had to run to the bathroom but before you came back the song was already over and now you’ve got a bunch of talking on your tape at the end of the song? So now you had to press REWIND. STOP. Listen. Rewind some more. Repeat. Oh no. I went back too much. FORWARD FORWARD. Shit. Now I have to go backward again. Oh shit the DJ is now playing my FAVORITE song that I have not been able to get on tape?!
Remember there was no Internet. No Google? And the only way you could figure out the lyrics was by listening to the songs over and over again?
Well, if I had kept all my tapes with the lyric sheets, you could see that I had written down Chinese next to English words that I had to look up in the dictionary. That was how I learned English. How many of us learned English.
Actually till this day I still have no idea what the lyrics to most of my favorite songs are.
I wish I had kept all my mixed tapes. [I did not mention that quite a few were given as gifts by my “male friends”. Remember making mixed tapes for the person you’re interested in hoping that they’d know how you felt simply from listening to the songs?!]
Remember Wicked Game?
Every Time You Go Away?
Last Christmas? [There was eye roll and groan]
The Tide Is High?
Oh my god. Do you remember Take On Me? Do you?
I showed the boys the other day the music video of Take On Me. I told them it was ground-breaking when it first came out. Everybody was wowed because nothing like that had been done before. Of course they went Meh! on it. But oh I still remember how excited I was. We were.”
Just as I was wrapping up my psychotic rambling, complete with hand gestures and bouncing up and down on the chair, I recognized the first few notes of the next song coming from the ceiling.
I paused.
“Could this be?”
“No fucking way!”
But way. It was Take On Me.
If I did not think I am too old to be posting on My Life Is Average (or commonly known as MLIA), I would post:
Today just when I was reminiscing about how awesome it was when we first saw the music video of Take On Me, right on cue, the PA system started playing the song. MLIA.
It was a good day.
AHa – Take On Me from Eian Aldrich on Vimeo.
Coda: As I was finishing up this post, The Husband came to see what I was up to. “Remember this music video?!” I excitedly showed him the A-Ha MTV. Turns out he has never ever seen it. Maybe I am a true cougar here. Maybe I have been married to a 20-year-old born after 1980 without realizing it…
You all have a good night now while I go find out whether he has ever seen the music video for Falco’s Rock Me Amadeus…
