The Songs That Shaped Me: The Second Decade

I got a little bit of musical whiplash putting this list together. From 1982 to 1991, popular music changed quickly and dramatically. Also during that era, I changed dramatically. Not a one of us is the same person at 10 as we are at 19. Now, I can look at myself and recognize both the child and the young adult. I can see the parts of myself that remind me of both those eras. But then? At 19, I was ready to throw out my childish things. I ended this period a lost soul.

Feel free to tell me where I messed it all up hopelessly. I hope you enjoy and feel inspired either to revisit the music from this era or think about the songs that tell your own story.

1982: “Maybe” from the “Annie” soundtrack. I aged out of my small private school in June of 1982 and went to a public school for about a month that fall. Mom took me on a tour of a few schools in my neighborhood and the one I picked — the closest one to my house — was painted in warm, sunny, welcoming colors. I was kind of in love with the school secretary, Miss Brunson, a young woman with a gorgeous Afro and big hoop earrings. She was so kind and gentle with me. I wanted her to be my big sister.

Right before school started, I found out that we would be leaving my hometown at the end of October and moving to a suburb outside Raleigh, the state capital. Anxiety consumed me, I felt constantly like I would vomit. I couldn’t remember living anywhere else. I lived for the beach, and I wanted to be able to go after school and on weekends just as I always had. And the sunny new school quickly became my favorite place in the world. I got to change classes, which was fun and very grownup-feeling. I had new friends and experienced new things in only a month and a half there.

The school choir practiced every day in the room next door to my social studies class. I got distracted easily by what they were practicing, which was “Maybe” from the Annie soundtrack. I changed the words in my head — “But they made one mistake/and that was taking me.” It is still hard for me to hear it without crying.

P.S. I have to mention one thing about the move. It was hard moving schools, but I made friends that year who are still in my circle. One of them, who was then called Larry, is the godfather to our children (and we are the godparents to his). Also, in something of a miracle, my old best friend from the small private school was attending the exact same school as I did. The odds of this happening were many thousands to one. Even though I was a first-rate nerd, I made it through the transition only somewhat scathed.

1983: “Africa” by Toto. Go on, call me a cliché. I am aware that Kilimanjaro does not rise above the Serengeti. It was impossible to avoid this song when Larry moved to South Africa. (Hell, it’s still impossible to avoid this song.) As a Time- and National Geographic-reading nerd, I was aware of the news coming out of South Africa during this period — Botha, martial law, sanctions — and I worried. When I heard this song, I thought of him and sent a little prayer for his safety and for peace in South Africa.

Honorable mentions go to “Human Nature” by Michael Jackson, which had the best and most sample-worthy hook on the entire “Thriller” album (take that, “Billie Jean”); “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie, which takes me back to a slumber party during which I called a radio station repeatedly and obsessively to request this song; and to “Perfect Circle” by R.E.M., which I discovered later and transports me to an era of driving my friends around, doing nothing in particular except checking out what older and cooler people were doing, salivating for the independence that being older would bring.

1984: “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band-Aid. Because I was paying attention to news from the whole African continent, I was hyper-aware of the devastating Ethiopian famine. I still remember the image on a newscast of a small boy with long lashes, staring into the distance, with a distended belly, covered by flies. In 12-year-old me, this created a lot of emotions. Anger. Sadness. Frustration. What could I, as a kid, do? What could any one person do? I felt helpless and small in the face of something that would likely kill this small child and so, so many others. One thing I could do was to buy the single for “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” This small act sent me down the road of a life of service, which I follow to this day (or, at least, try to). It was a small thing, but enough people did it that it raised more than $7 million for famine relief.

This was also the year I a) became hyperaware of popular music and b) got my very own boombox so I could listen to music in my room and make mix tapes late into the night (sorry, Dad). I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the song which sent me hurtling down the road of popular music: “Against All Odds” by Phil Collins. You will notice that my younger tastes ran toward the sentimental and earnest. A form of rebellion, I guess.

1985: “Bitchin’ Camaro” by The Dead Milkmen. In 1988, I met a friend I adored, and he made me listen to this song. He dubbed a tape for me of Big Lizard in My Backyard, an album full of hilarious punk songs that formed much of my high school soundtrack, and this song is its crown jewel. The song is tailor-made for a teenager — witty, sarcastic, silly and surreal (“Bitchin’ Camaro, Bitchin’ Camaro/Doughnuts on your lawn/Bitchin’ Camaro, Bitchin’ Camaro/Tony Orlando and Dawn!”), with a heaping helping of “eat the rich” sentiment.

Honorable mention: “Cloudbusting” by Kate Bush, and really everything on her album Hounds of Love, and the songs I was actually listening to in 1985: “Tender Love” by Force MDs; “Life in a Northern Town” by The Dream Academy; and (here I hide my head a lot) “Super Bowl Shuffle” by the Chicago Bears. I had Bears fever something fierce in early 1986. I even had a picture of Jim McMahon above my giant Michael Jordan poster. Love me some Chicago sports.

1986: “If You Leave” by Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark. I still don’t know why Andie didn’t pick Duckie in “Pretty in Pink.” My favorite part of this movie, though, besides this song (how many other girls had a picture of OMD on their wall?) was Harry Dean Stanton’s nuanced, pained portrayal of her father, who couldn’t give her the life her new rich friends had. Those hangdog eyes destroyed me.

This was a period of movies for me. My parents let me watch most anything I wanted, and I gravitated toward the surreal and brainy. “Blue Velvet” and “Eraserhead” by David Lynch (masterpieces), “Harold and Maude” (brilliant), “Brother From Another Planet” by John Sayles (underrated), “Hollywood Shuffle” by Robert Townsend (also underrated), and “Eating Raoul” by Paul Bartel (hasn’t aged well) were some of my favorites during this period. I loved watching “Night Flight” on the USA Network, the televisual equivalent of shitposting; and “Commander USA’s Groovie Movies,” also on USA. Commander USA was an out-of-shape ex-superhero whose headquarters was under a shopping mall in Paramus, New Jersey. He drew Lefty, his sidekick, on his hand with his cigar ash. He hosted weird Mexican wrestling and horror movies. Every day before school, I drew Lefty on my hand with Sharpie. I didn’t care if others called me weird. Maybe I wanted them to think I was weird.

I was changing.

As part of this change, popular music began to bore me. The Bon Jovi bomb went off in 1986, and hair metal just wasn’t my thing. I had Slippery When Wet just like everybody else but it didn’t do much for me. I wore out my cassette of Run-D.M.C.’s Raising Hell, but I didn’t know much other rap at that point in my musical evolution.

I was a platypus in a world of peacocks. I began high school, my body was changing, my heart was changing, and I was starting to see everything through new eyes. My friend Melanie moved to New Hampshire. My longtime best friend from Wilmington was at a different school now and infinitely cooler than me. We were still close, but it was different. Larry moved back from South Africa, bringing his cute best friend with him, but he called himself Rob now and he was also infinitely cooler and consequently more distant from me. I did marching band, through which I was teased mercilessly by even my band director. Though I had plenty of friends, I felt I had few with whom to share my weirdest recesses. Even music was beginning to betray me.

1987: “Troy” by Sinéad O’Connor. O’Connor could sing like an angel and, in a beat, turn her voice into a devilish snarl. Combine this with her sense of style and those infamous wide eyes, and I was hooked. Now that she has shuffled off this mortal coil, we will say much about how she was a woman of paradoxes, and her music speaks to this. I idolized her and her music from the moment I heard her and, as I learned more about what she stood for, I loved her more and more. She really did fight the real enemy.

Honorable mentions: “Going to Graceland” by The Dead Milkmen, which was on the store-bought cassette my adored friend gave me for Christmas, and to which I’d listen while I stared at Rob’s cute friend from a distance; and “Never Tear Us Apart” by INXS, a moody, broody love song with teeth.

1988: “Freak Scene” by Dinosaur Jr. My old best friend moved an hour west of us, but it didn’t seem quite as devastating. Part of this was that our friendship had assumed a push-and-pull. During the next few years, we slammed the phone receiver down on each other more than a few times. Physical distance meant we saw each other more infrequently. Still, he brought new girlfriends to me for vetting, but none of them were good enough until the one he married. I didn’t bring boyfriends to him because I knew in my heart of hearts that none of them were good enough until the one I married. (He approves of that one.)

One time, during a rough period in our friendship, he sent me a letter with a snippet of lyrics from this song.

Sometimes I don’t thrill you
Sometimes I think I’ll kill you
Just don’t let me fuck up, will you
’Cause when I need a friend it’s still you

When I hear it now, I smile because it’s like a prayer to my friend. I hope that if I think it loudly enough, he’ll hear it across the miles.

Honorable mentions: “Birthday” by The Sugarcubes, which I loved for many of the reasons I loved Sinéad O’Connor, namely Björk’s wail; and “Under the Milky Way” by The Church. I was already listening to The Church before the album “Starfish” came out and everybody started listening to them. I was a little put out that what had been my special thing became everybody else’s. I was a laughable music snob.

1989: “Rocket’s Tail” by Kate Bush. In North Carolina, at least, feminism was not a popular topic of high school conversation. Incrementally, I was waking up to the fact that popular music was largely a men’s game. In popular music, women mostly were relegated to singing the sweetest bubblegum songs (Debbie Gibson, Tiffany) or being objects of the male gaze (Tawny Kitaen in the Whitesnake video). Thank goodness for artists such as Sinéad O’Connor, the Björk-fronted Sugarcubes, and Kate Bush. (There is probably no coincidence here that none of them are American.) For her album The Sensual World, Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares (“The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices”) back her on three songs. Bulgarian singing is a different animal from most Western singing. It’s raw and high, with dissonant harmonies, like a controlled yawp. It’s miraculous. I wore this album out listening to the choir. When I met a friend years later who had studied singing in Bulgaria, I had to sit him down to get him to tell me all about it.

Honorable mentions: “Marlene Dietrich’s Favorite Poem” by Peter Murphy, whose voice I could listen to all day and who puts on a hell of a live show; “About a Girl” by Nirvana, which showed that hard rock could mix with a melody that Paul McCartney would applaud and become magic; and “I’m Not the Man I Used To Be” by Fine Young Cannibals. Best song on a great album.

1990: “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinéad O’Connor. Ever have one of those breakups that felt like a knife piercing your stomach? One that stokes all your fears — you’re not good enough, you’re not pretty enough or funny enough or fun enough, you are inherently flawed and nobody will ever want to be with you again, and you will never figure out what this flaw is? And then, after all this, you know you are pathetic enough that if he were to call you and say he wanted you back, you’d go to him without a second thought?

This is about where I was on my 18th birthday, when this song was massively popular. My friends, who were the best and sweetest ones, bought me a cake and had a party for me at lunchtime to try to cheer me up, but I was damned near inconsolable. After school I went home and listened to Sinéad sing how she knew that living with him, baby, was sometimes hard, but she’d be willing to give it another try. I felt less alone. It helped me get out of bed and go play Super Mario 3.

I am letting sentiment win out here. It was hard for me not to pick “I Am Stretched On Your Grave” from the same album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, because it’s an even better song. Seventeenth-century poetry set to James Brown’s “Funky Drummer” backbeat? Yes, please! And there’s “Clean” by Depeche Mode, which traces a tenuous grip on sobriety. First, the insistence (“Now that I’m clean/The cleanest I’ve been”). Then the introduction of the word “sometimes” from another voice, so the mantra becomes “Now I’m clean/Sometimes.” Then the ceasing of vocals altogether into a droning, washing melody that fades out and away. It gives me goosebumps.

1991: “Oceans” by Pearl Jam. Truth? In 1991, I was listening mostly to Elvis Costello and old R.E.M. and Pink Floyd, and Chapel Hill institution The Veldt. I didn’t have a TV. I ground into my studies, determined to do better in college than I did in high school, studying feverishly. I don’t remember much about this year except going to see “Terminator 2.”

A couple of years later, however, there was a night I found myself sitting on the sand in Atlantic Beach, wondering what the hell I was doing with myself and with my life and who I even was. I wondered how I could be authentic to myself when I didn’t know what that meant. I was not in a pit of despair — it was more like a shallow bowl of despair. I could get out of it but, as people I barely knew were having fun all around me, I felt completely alone and had an impulsive thought: I wondered if anyone would miss me if I walked into the ocean and stayed there. This song, which played in my head that night, reminds me that I’m still here and that this is a good thing. The music undulates — quiet, loud, quiet — and Eddie Vedder’s baritone alternates perfectly between fierce and gentle, just like the waves. Just thinking about it takes me to the water in my mind.

In a week(ish): It’s the ’90s, baby! Thanks for reading.