MichMoms Blog

Category: Music

Me then is them now

Once upon a time, like back in the 1980s, so not that very long ago, there lived a girl in a house with a family. Totally normal, like for sure. This girl loved music and ballet - and hot boys, but this is about the music that girl loved. Ballet and boys can be another "once upon a time" story.

This girl could sit in her room for hours just listening to music on the radio and tapes on her boom box. Remember the days of the boom box /ghetto blaster? This girl wanted one so badly that she worked her butt off in school, got good grades and earned this lovely silver-colored piece of stereo equipment.

She could sit for hours blasting her stereo, ignoring her mother's and father's pleads to turn it down - until they entered her shrine to Duran Duran of a bedroom and told her if she didn't turn down the music, they would turn it down permanently. Thank goodness for Sony Walkman gizmos.

This girl would memorize the words of all the songs she loved. She memorized the names of all the bands and the songs they sang. You could not stump this girl on any '80s music that had to do with top 40 or New Music, not to mention some big hair bands. This girl was an '80s music aficionado.

She got a job in a record store (back when there were still records) and people from far and wide came to her for advice on what album, cassette and, later, CD to buy. Music, she loved it.

Then this girl grew up.

The ghetto blaster was replaced by a Sony stereo system. Radio stations stopped playing the music she had spent her youth memorizing. Now only the oldies stations play her wonderful music.

This girl now has kids of her own. She thinks it's funny because they are like she was, once upon a time, back in the '80s. They know all the music and bands and words to all the songs. They blast their iPod docks. They download songs all day from iTunes. They memorize the words to all their songs thanks to Google.

And this girl is how her mom was, once upon a time, back in the '80s.

Clueless.