A few days ago, a contestant from the American Idol semi-finals this past season, who has become a good friend of mine, Alex Wagner-Trugman, posted the following on Twitter:
"you ever have those albums that remind you of a certain time in life? evolver by john legend is bringing back sophomore year memories."
I thought about that for awhile, and came to the conclusion that yeah, I have not particular albums, but more like particular songs that remind me of a certain time in life. Since I didn't have anything better to blog about today, I'm gonna list all the songs that I can think of that bring back memories of a particular time in my life. We're gonna go in chronological order, starting with the summer of 2006.
1. "Gold Digger" by Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx. The cast of "Glee" recently released a version of it. There's no cursing in this version and is more family friendly, and when I listened to it, I was transported back to the summer of 2006. I was at my summer camp in Amherst, MA, and we had a talent show on the first Saturday I was there. The very first act was the head of the theater part of the camp, Paul, reciting the song "Gold Digger" as if it were a dramatic piece. And he had a guy next to him replacing all the swear words with more family-friendly words that meant the same thing. It was REALLY hilarious and I ended up adapting that for a performing group at my school. My friend Jon did the reciting and I replaced all the swear words with the family-friendly words. The kids got a kick out of it too.
2. "My Destiny" Katharine McPhee. Katharine was runner-up of "American Idol" season 5, and she was my favorite female contestant of that season. "My Destiny" was her first single. I sang it in the camp talent show in 2006, and then the first 2 verses of it on the final night of camp in 2007. Normally I don't like repeating songs more than once for a crowd, but I felt "My Destiny" was an exception. The lyrics pretty much summed up the summer of 2007 for me into 3 minutes and 48 seconds (idk how long the first 2 verses are, but yeah). I was a counselor that summer at that same camp, and it was stressful and hard, but through all the mistakes I had made, I still managed to have an amazing summer, plus I had my best friend Brian by my side. When I mentioned I was gonna sing something, my division leader said that it wasn't really a singing thing, but I'm the type of person who breaks the mold and shakes things up (usually). So I sang the song for Brian, then he came down with this big smile on his face and gave me a hug, while the entire camp cheered. It was just incredible.
3. "U Can't Touch This" MC Hammer. This song was my friend Josh and I's jam. He had burned it onto a CD mix and brought it with him on one of the dress rehearsal nights for one of the plays we did together, I can't remember which one. And then I had written a skit based on a conversation with my friends Jon and Rica, titled "Actual, Real-Life, Not Fake Conversation Between 3 People". And then I was visiting my stepgrandparents over Thanksgiving break in 2006, I was listening to the song "U Can't Touch This" and I decided it'd be a funny addition to the skit. I had originally planned on performing it with Jon and Rica but neither of them were able to attend that night, so I picked my friend Josh to do it because I knew he knew the song, and I picked my friend Faith just because she's awesome. And I actually have the skit recorded on youtube:
I'm the one in the hat, Faith is the one in the white dress and Josh is the guy. I showed this to my clique of friends and they all loved it. My friend Mackenzy said it was epic, and my friend Melanie commented that I really knew how to let loose and that she didn't think she could ever do that. And then they played that song at prom in 2008. Josh arrived shortly after they played it and I ran up to him and told him they played it.
4. "Summer of '69" Bryan Adams. This song is my best friend Brian and I's song. At the end of the summer of 2007, I dedicated this song to him on the Delilah show and wrote a song for him to the tune of it. That's all I'll say about this one.
5. "The Rainbow Connection" Kermit the Frog. My senior year of high school I started to become obsessed with the Muppets. I wrote a monolouge about one of the Sesame Street Muppets and rented The Muppet Movie over and over and over again. And I got my sister to watch it with me too. And I also had to explain to my friend Davis what Muppets were. She was covering this performing group I was participating in for the school yearbook, and when I mentioned to her that my piece was about a Muppet, she asked what a Muppet was. I was like "What's a Muppet!? Child, you have been deprived." I did my best to explain it to her. Muppets are hard to explain haha. And then I ended up learning that song in my voice lessons in college and singing it for my vocal jury.
6. "What Hurts the Most" Rascal Flatts. It's a really sad song, but I shared a dance with one of my best friends, Michael, to that song at my senior prom. That's what my memory of that song is.
7. "Don't Stop Believin'" Journey. Wow, oh my word, where do I begin with this song? I'll start with homecoming my senior year. I requested that the DJ play this song, and when they did, I mentioned to my crush at the time, Luke, that I liked it. He hadn't heard it before. Then when we were both in the gym, I said "C'mon Luke, let's dance," and he said "Okay," so we just slow danced to the final chorus of that song and sort of lip-synced the words while we were dancing. And when we were done, the only thing I can think of to say was "thank you," so I did. My second good memory of the song is that I made a video for Adam Lambert set to this song, and it is now my most-viewed video on my current youtube account (over 140,000 views). If you want to see it:
And my 3rd memory of this song dates back to this past summer. One night at the end of June, I went out for karaoke with my aunt Debby, cousin Bonny and my grandma. I was looking through one of the song books to see if they had Don't Stop Believin', and they did. When I told Bonny that I was gonna go sing it, she mentioned that Journey was going to be at the Iowa State Fair. I went up to give the guy programming the song codes in my song number, and I mentioned that they were gonna be at the fair and he said yeah they were. Then I mentioned that I loved the song, and he said he loved it too and then offered to sing it with me. I said sure. So we had a nice little duet. He can't sing at all, but it was still fun. And after all that I gave him a big hug, held him kinda tight. Hey, he was cute!
8. "Eventually" The Naked Brothers Band. In the summer of 2008, my home state of Iowa was hit by a lot of rainfalls/tornadoes, which then resulted in flooding. I didn't live near any rivers, but my old work was near one, and twice we had to move people to the back of the store because of a tornado scare. It was annoying and stupid, but we got paid for doing it. This song is about hope, and the lyrics just felt so suited for what my state was going through: "the sun will find us all eventually, eventually".
And my current song jam is "Super Freak" by Rick James. I first heard it in this commercial:
and I thought it was hilarious. I want to make a video of me and a friend jamming out to this song. But first I need a camcorder and a friend to do it with me. I want to make it kind of a cross between "iCarly" and this fanfiction I'm writing right now.
So there's my long list of songs that remind me of high school/summer fun. Any comments/songs you want to list off, feel free to leave them! And you DO NOT have to be a blogger member to comment!
Love y'all,
***-Lily-***
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