A Song That Makes Me Feel Guilty

Day Twenty-Eight – A Song That Makes Me Feel Guilty:

Once upon a time when Emily was a young lass of twelve, her brother brought home a cassette tape by the Violent Femmes. The emerging 80’s alterative music lover (thanks in part to her older brother’s taste in music) loved the infectious songs recorded on that now-classic album.

There was one particular song that cracked 12-yr old Emily up every time she heard it. It was a song that her brother loved to play over and over again, just to get a rise out of his “baby sister.”

One fine day, while blasting out the Violent Femmes’ “Add It Up” on the stereo system, the siblings’ mother came rushing into the room. She pressed the stop button on the cassette tape player and then took it out of the stereo system. She then proceeded to throw said cassette tape down on the ground and smash it with one stomp of her heel.

From that day forward, every time Emily hears that song … she can’t help but feel just a tad guilty.

The other part of her looks back at that memory and GRINS. Because really … how smart were those two siblings to play such a song in front of their mother?

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

What is with this 30-day song challenge?

What was yesterday‘s song?

Who knew that one day we'd be delinquents in our Mom's eyes?

 

A Song I Can Play

Day Twenty-Six – A Song I Can Play:

Like most first-generation Filipino-Americans that spent the majority of their formative years in the late 70’s and early 80’s, I took years and years of piano lessons. Yet even after all those years of lessons, I still can’t read notes quick enough; nor can I count out the correct melody so readily. Unless, of course I already knew  how a particular song was supposed to sound.

Yeah, I seam to have an “ear” for music, but not necessarily the talent to actually play music … at least not in the caliber I would need to in order to be that famous musician I had always dreamed of becoming in high school.

During one of the years I was playing a lot on the piano, I was able to figure out how to play the music to Yaz’s “Only You.”

Now ask me if I know how to play the entire song now? Uhm … the answer would be “Nope.”

Which is really too bad, because I would love to start playing the piano again.

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

What is with this 30-day song challenge?

What was yesterday‘s song?

A Song That Makes Me Laugh

Day Twenty-Five – A Song That Makes Me Laugh:

What more can I say about this song?

Or the Pixies, for that matter?

This song always makes me smile … so much that I’ve told Hubby that if we ever throw ourselves a Silver Anniversary party, this would be our “entrance song” …

Come on now … who wouldn’t laugh at a song that starts out with telling you to “shake your butt”?

( “But not too hard … ” )

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

What is with this 30-day song challenge?

What was yesterday‘s song?

 

A Song I Want Played At My Funeral

Day Twenty-Four – A Song I Want Played At My Funeral:

It started a few years ago … probably even longer. Come to think of it, Hubby &I probably started to have discussions about what song we’d want to have at our own funerals shortly after we had seen “Love, Actually” when Liam Neeson’s character plays “Bye Bye, Baby” by the Bay City Rollers at his recently-deceased wife’s funeral service.

When Hubby’s grandmother passed away in January of 2008, Hubby’s family had asked him to put together a slide show that they could take with them back to the Philippines, where his “Nanay” would finally placed at rest. But when you have a slide show, you must have accompanying music to go with the slide show, right? So Hubby & I had come up with a handful of songs to place on this DVD slide show: “Because You Loved Me” by Celine Dion was an obvious choice. We also threw in Boyz II Men’s “A Song For Mama” for good measure. (That song gets me every time!)

A few months after that project was completed, Hubby told me about a song that came up on digital music library. He had been missing his Nanay when Rob Thomas’ “Now Comes The Night” came on. It was a song, he said, that was perfect to play at a funeral.

A Hard Day ... Last quiet moment together as a family

Of course, I had to listen to the song right away … and when I did, I couldn’t help but think the same thing. Because, as sad as the song sounded, the lyrics were hopeful and uplifting.

In fact, it’s a song I can listen during the days when I miss my Dad the most. Because it reminds me that – even though he’s not physically here next to me – he’s still with me in spirit.

So this would be the song that I’d like to be played at my own funeral … I want those family and friends to feel comforted that I will still be with them, looking over them in the best way that I can.

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

What is with this 30-day song challenge?

What was yesterday‘s song?

 

A Song I Played At My Wedding

Day Twenty-Three – A Song I Played At My Wedding:

One of the movie dates Hubby & I went on when we were still dating was Aladdin. We had loved the humor of the movie so much (not to mention what cuteness occurred during our showing of the movie) that it quickly became a favorite of ours.

A few months later, in one of my rare displays of creativity … I surprised Future-Hubby with a nice romantic picnic on the floor of my dorm room. And since the movie was no longer in the theaters, I happened to find all the makings of an Aladdin-themed picnic for a very modestly cheap, “I’m a broke college student”-type price. To this day, Hubby & I look back on that “date” with such fond memories.

When it came time to plan our wedding, Hubby & I had no intention of having anything but your standard, middle-class Filipino-American reception. We never thought that we’d associate a theme with our wedding. But in another one of my rare displays of creativity (Hubby’s the one with the Fine Arts Degree … not me!), the thought of doing something around an Aladdin theme came to mind. And luckily, Hubby thought the idea was also brilliant.

So … here’s what we did to make our wedding unique. First off, Hubby wanted to design our wedding invitations; which, in 1996 was not a very common thing to pull off. Second, we decided that our wedding favors would be in the shape of Aladdin’s magic lamp and contain pieces of candy inside of it. Thirdly … we wanted to use a musical porcelain figurine of Aladdin & Jasmin on the Magic Carpet as our cake topper. And finally, the fact that the figurine could wind up and play “A Whole New World,” which we decided would be our “First Dance” song … well that was the icing on the cake (both literally and figuratively).

And that’s the song (one of many songs played that night) that we had at our wedding.

Here’s a video (seen on the Aladdin DVD) of how the song came to be …

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

What is with this 30-day song challenge?

What was yesterday‘s song?