Getting To Know You

GTKY: Get Your Groove On

Wow! Great question. As a former Hippie and Flower Child all my songs are from the sixties and early seventies; “the Classics”.

Today's GTKY challenge is to share with us some of the songs that make up your memories and a little bit about the memory itself. Or maybe you'll share a certain summer and the music you grooved to while cruising main street on a Friday night. Or the music you danced to at street parties.
There are alot of good writers out there and I can't wait to read your musical memories, so .....

Beach Boys (California Girls)
Beatles (Let It Be)
Bob Seger (Turn The Page)
Bruce Springsteen (Born To Run)
Chicago (I’m a Man)
Cream (White Room)
Credence Clearwater Revival (Badmoon Rising)
Doobie Brothers (China Grove)
Eric Clapton (Layla)
Foreigner (Waiting For A Girl Like You)
Grateful Dead (Trunkin’)
Kinks (Lola)
Led Zeplin (Stairway To Heaven)
Melissa Etheridge (Come To My Window)
Momma's And The Pappa's (California Dreamin)
Moody Blues (Knights In White Satin)
Pat Benatar (Hit Me With Your Best Shot)
Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon)
Pure Prairie League (Amie)
Queen (We Will Rock You)
Steppeinwolf (Born to be Wild)
Steve Miller (Fly Like An Eagle)
Styx (The Grand Illusion)
The Doors (Riders On The Storm)
The Rolling Stones (Paint It, Black)

These are only a small percentage of the songs that I grew up listening. They bring back both good and bad memories, memories of crusin’ Mc Donald’s, eight tracks, Vietnam and the draft, “Sex, Drugs and Rock an’ Roll”.

I remember the first time I heard “Lola”. It was a summer day and I was washing the family car, I heard the lyrics “Girls will be boys and boys will be girls”, I was stunned and I sat down the grass listening to the rest of the song. It was the first time I realized that I was not alone.

“I met her in a club down in old soho
Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry-cola
C-o-l-a cola
She walked up to me and she asked me to dance
I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said lola
L-o-l-a lola lo-lo-lo-lo lola”…

“Lo-lo-lo-lo lola
Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
Its a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for lola
Lo-lo-lo-lo lola”

Chicago’s “I’m a Man” brings back sadder memories; even though I was dancing and singing the song when we had patries, I remember that somehow the song just didn’t feel right to me. It felt like a lie.

But then other songs bring back memories of pot smoke full dorm rooms. Laying on floor tripping and smoking pot in a blacklight lit room on a Saturday night listen to Pink Floyd, Led Zeplin, The Rolling Stones, Cream, The Doors and Jimmie Hindrix’s “Purple Haze”. Watching the Sunrise on a Sunday morning. Watching the snow flakes melting. Staring at the footprints in the snow, one side illuminated by the blue Mercury vapor lights and the other side lit by the yellow sodium vapor lights.
Here is a poem that I wrote four or five years ago about my memories…..

Memories
I look up, clutching my mother’s dress.
The big lady says “My aren’t you a pretty young lady”
I am not! I am a boy!
Click.
I look up, clutching my mother’s dress.
The big lady says, “I bet you were wishing for a girl.”
Click.
Big brother says, “Mommy wanted a girl. And she got you instead!”
Click.
A big closet with all nice little dresses.
Click.
You can’t play any more with the little girl down the street.
Why not?
Because, we say so Davy.
Click.
Howdy Dowdy Puppet
Ha, ha. You got a doll for Christmas.
It’s not a doll! Throwing it away in the bushes.
Click.
Sister Mary Ellen says we all have to wear a skirt and high heel shoes.
It’s only for Freshman Initiation.
My, don’t you look pretty.
Click.
Davy, I have to go out. You don’t mind being left alone?
Run to the bedroom open the closet.
My don’t I look pretty.
Click
Oh my God! It’s my brother.
Run to the bedroom.
What are you doing in bed in the middle of the day?
Click.
Washing the car. On the radio, “It’s a mixed up shook up world.” Huh?
Click.
Slide ruler. Diff-E-Que. Maxwell Equations.
Beard, long hair, old army jacket. Here man try some of this, it’s dy-omite.
Clllliiiiiick.
Backpacking, skiing, fishing, scuba diving. I’m a man.
Click.
Renee Richards.
What Sex am I?
Jan Morris.
Click.
We’re getting Internet connections for everyone here at the office.
Let’s see, search for transformers and inductors.
What’s this? Transsexuals?
I got to get me one of these computers for home.
Click.
Melanie Phillips, Lynn LeFevre, Becky Allison, MD., Dr Anne
Lawrence.
Click.
COS
Click
Meetings. Banquet. Picnics, Fantasia Fair. First Event.
New friends. Walking down a street. Restaurants.
Rain on my stockings.
Laughing…