The Soundtrack To My Life

My life might make a boring movie but I think the soundtrack would be great. I love music and there is a song for almost every memory I have. If I love you at all, chances are I have a song for you.

When I was a little girl, I would sit and play records for my mom while she did laundry and ironing. Long before I started to school or could read I recognized the records I wanted to hear by their labels. For years I knew what label every artist was on.

Even as a child I had my own taste in music. I found it hard to like something just because it was popular. When all my fifth grade Friends were diggin' the Archie's Bang Shang a Lang and Sugar Sugar, I couldn't forget the Archie's were a made up cartoon band not to mention comic book characters. Still brokenhearted and disappointed by the Monkeys the previous year, I would not be fooled again.

The Chi Lite's Oh Girl and Have You Seen Her and the Temptation's Just My Imagination were my favorite songs in seventh grade. Most of us junior high schoolers hadn't gotten into hard rock yet. One morning I walked into art class and my teacher, a very strange and sullen man, said, "did ya hear the news? Isn't it awful what happened to Janis Joplin?" We all said Janis who? He couldn't believe we were so uncool.

I had this friend named Mary. Her mother was divorced and had six kids. The two youngest were named after John Lennon and Paul McCartney. On Sundays Mary's mom would give us her car to go do laundry at the laundry mat. We were just in the sixth and seventh grade but we would ride around and listen to her mom's Led Zeppelin tapes. We didn't do anything wrong except underage driving.

Eighth grade was all about Carol King and Paul Simon for me. Paul Simon's self titled album is still one of my favorites today. The song Mother and Child Reunion means something completely different to me now.

High school was different. That's when I really started to love Rock. I had listened to the Beatles and Stones my whole life because of my older brothers. But now I was really listening. I loved Bad Company, James Gang, Led Zeppelin and, before they went commercial, Z Z Top. And Neil Young and Little Feat and I could go on and on.

I started listening to the blues late in High school. Eric Clapton, E C Was Here is still the album I'll go to first most of the time. One day I was listening to Eric and my mom came in my room and said she liked it. Then she suggested I check out Muddy Waters. I had no idea Mom was a blues fan from way back in the 40's.

None of this matters to anyone but me. I just thought it would be fun to write it down, maybe see where Ive been and how I got there. In the movie, Hi Fidelity there is a scene where John Cusack is organizing his massive album collection. His friend ask him if he is doing it alphabetically or what and Cusack says "No. Autobiographic." I love that line, so now, here are my top 10 all time favorite songs in autobiographic order.

10. Hello Stranger by Barbara Lewis

9. Walk Away Renee by..I don't know who this is by

8. These Eyes by The guess Who

7. Mother and Child Reunion by Paul Simon

6. Doctor My Eyes by Jackson Browne

5. Layla by Eric Clapton

4. Box Of Rain by The Grateful Dead

3. Love Has No Pride by Bonnie Raitt

2. Into The Mystic by Van Morrison

And the number one all time favorite tune in autobiographic order...

Have You Ever Loved A Woman by Eric Clapton