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Post by Kapitan on Sept 9, 2020 16:01:03 GMT
I think it was TCK who shared some Facebook or other social media questionnaire about music. Those things can be kind of fun, in my opinion, and a nice way to not just spur conversation, but maybe get ourselves thinking about different topics than usual.
So I began putting together a list of questions about common musical experiences that people might have different, interesting responses to. Rather than do them all at once, I thought I'd toss them out a couple at a time (for as long as people care and as long as I or others come up with questions).
Don't worry too much about the exact question: if you don't have the perfectly accurate answer, just go with something close (e.g., if it says "the first" but you can't recall, just pick something from early on).
As always, while answers are fun, stories are more fun. So any anecdotes, context, etc., is appreciated!
Questions:
The first song you remember liking.
The first song—excluding literal children’s music—that you recall becoming embarrassed at having previously liked.
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Post by kds on Sept 9, 2020 16:34:04 GMT
The first song I remember liking
This probably goes back to when I was three or four years old (sometime between 1983 and 1984), but I remember liking Help by The Beatles and my Dad got me a 45. In my early childhood, I'd ask my father for 45s of several songs, ranging from The Animals It's My Life and Herman's Hermits For Love to more contemporary (at the time) music like Steve Perry's Oh Sherrie, Tears for Fears's Shout, and Paul Young's Everytime You Go Away. As early as I can remember, I've always loved music, and I remember hearing The Beatles, Beach Boys, and Ricky Nelson in the car a lot as a very young kid.
The first song that I was embarrassed at having liked.
Probably Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. In fifth grade (1990), I was excited to get his cassette for Xmas. But, by late sixth grade (Spring 1992), I'd grown out of my rap phase.
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Post by jk on Sept 9, 2020 19:52:59 GMT
Questions:
The first song you remember liking.
The first song—excluding literal children’s music—that you recall becoming embarrassed at having previously liked.
The first one I remember liking was probably Tommy Steele's cover of "Come On, Let's Go" -- I was fascinated by the electric guitars. I had never heard this sound before. OK, so my parents were outraged at the fact that this "yob" earned £1,000 a week... Steele went on to a well-regarded career in musicals. As for the second question: it has to have been this one by Diana Decker:
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 9, 2020 19:59:42 GMT
I am struggling to answer my own questions, which will probably be common! But here goes...
The first song I remember liking. My parents (and older siblings) were/are all musical, and there was always music in the house. Honestly I don't think I could name the first song... One early one was "The Marvelous Toy," by the Chad Mitchell Trio. Another was the hilarious "Pretoria" by the Smothers Brothers. (That entire album still cracks me up. So does the Chad Mitchell Trio's Live at the Bitter End, for that matter.) I listened to a Monkees greatest hits album and Endless Summer (from which I liked "Fun Fun Fun" and "In My Room" best).
But maybe my favorite? The call-and-response liturgy in our church. Being conservative Lutherans, it was in English but formal in structure. I could remember it, being sung every week in these little one- and two-line parts. In fact, one of my earlier memories is a campfire singalong with extended family where my dad was accompanying on acoustic guitar. He was asking for requests, and all I could think of was "page 5." This was the page on which the liturgy began, with the pastor always saying "turn your hymnals to page 5." So that's all I knew it as.
The first song I was embarrassed for having liked. I'm not sure on this one, but my best guess is Bon Jovi "Livin' on a Prayer" or something along those lines, which I had turned against by maybe 1992 or so as I discovered "serious" music...
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 9, 2020 20:05:08 GMT
The first one I remember liking was probably Tommy Steele's cover of "Come On, Let's Go" -- I was fascinated by the electric guitars. I had never heard this sound before. OK, so my parents were outraged at the fact that this "yob" earned £1,000 a week... Steele went on to a well-regarded career in musicals. Is the band just a little loose rhythmically, or are they actually somewhat tight but with some of the attack lost in the reverb of the recording? Doesn't it sound like the guitar and bass aren't really together in the intro? The guitar sounds ahead of the bass to me. (That's an irrelevant observation for the topic at hand!) I know what you mean about the excitement of electric guitar. I remember the same kind of feeling. I had been exposed to my dad and his acoustic, but realizing what an electric sounded like, wow. And then meeting some semi-distant relative--maybe my mom's second cousin from Wisconsin or something?--and getting to see and touch an electric guitar? That was magical for me. In fact that's when I knew I'd be getting one. And a couple years later, I did.
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Post by B.E. on Sept 10, 2020 0:40:51 GMT
Questions:
The first song—excluding literal children’s music—that you recall becoming embarrassed at having previously liked.
For some reason, this moment always stuck with me. I'm middle school age, listening to the car radio with my best friend, as his mom drives to the bank. The hit song "Last Resort" by Papa Roach comes on. Great, turn it up! After a little while his mom just turns around and says to us, "do you even know what this song is about!?" Our response was more or less "uhhh....yeah...I think so...we just like the sound of it." Obviously, we were old enough to understand that it's about suicide, but we never really thought about it or questioned it. I wasn't embarrassed at the time. I didn't think I was earlier today, either, when you started this thread. But, I just listened to it, and couldn't stop laughing! Oh man. (I'll say, the hook, that opens the song, is pretty catchy. Probably hadn't heard it in 15-20 years, but I hadn't forgotten it.)
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Sept 10, 2020 11:19:04 GMT
The first song you remember liking:
In early 1964, I was six years old, and I remember my Mom coming home from shopping at the local Five & Dime store, now known as The Dollar Store. I was sitting on the living room floor watching TV with my older sister, and my Mom said, "I bought a record. It's by a group called The Beatles. They're really popular. Look at their hair!" Out of her shopping bag she pulled out the 45, "I Saw Her Standing There"/"I Want To Hold Your Hand" with picture sleeve.
I immediately went over to the record player, a tan, wooden RCA floor model, and put on the record. One, two, three, fah! My young mind was blown. It was a Brian Wilson/"Be My Baby" moment. I sat there in front of the record player and listened to that record over and over. It was one of those record players that automatically played the 45 continuously until you turned it off. After listening to "I Saw Her Standing There" several times, I turned the record over and did the same with "I Want To Hold Your Hand". I literally had my ear against the cloth in front which covered the speaker. That was the start of my music listening.
The first song I was embarrassed for having liked:
Other than The Beach Boys? Seriously, it wasn't cool to be a senior in high school listening to Endless Summer. I'm still that way, hesitant to mention that The Beach Boys are one of my favorite groups. I usually find myself having to explain why. If they only knew what I knew. Other than The Beach boys, it would have to be Sparks, or, at the time, their album, Kimono My House. First, the album cover was...a little different. Then, the music was...a little different. I remember the summer of my senior year in high school, and the football team was lifting weights in the weight room in the mornings. We all kind of took turns playing the album of our choice, and I chose "Kimono My House". I still remember one of the coaches saying, "What the hell is this?" Soon after that, there were requests to remove the album from the record player.
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Post by kds on Sept 10, 2020 12:26:17 GMT
One thing about my early years that popped into my head was the early 80s Saturday Morning cartoon Alvin and the Chipmunks. They actually used Chipmunked versions of contemporary music on the show. The first time I ever heard songs like Crazy Little Thing Called Love and One Way or Another (Blondie) were courtesy of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 10, 2020 12:32:19 GMT
One thing about my early years that popped into my head was the early 80s Saturday Morning cartoon Alvin and the Chipmunks. They actually used Chipmunked versions of contemporary music on the show. The first time I ever heard songs like Crazy Little Thing Called Love and One Way or Another (Blondie) were courtesy of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. My main recollection of their music was "Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys." To which one of them (presumably Alvin) would always add "chipmunks." "Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboy...chipmunks."
That and "Christmas Christmas time is here."
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Post by kds on Sept 10, 2020 12:43:50 GMT
One thing about my early years that popped into my head was the early 80s Saturday Morning cartoon Alvin and the Chipmunks. They actually used Chipmunked versions of contemporary music on the show. The first time I ever heard songs like Crazy Little Thing Called Love and One Way or Another (Blondie) were courtesy of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. My main recollection of their music was "Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys." To which one of them (presumably Alvin) would always add "chipmunks." "Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboy...chipmunks."
That and "Christmas Christmas time is here."
Prior to the Saturday morning cartoon, The Chipmunks had an animated Christmas special that first aired in 1981. Thankfully, that special did not use any music of the time, so they could release it on DVD with no red tape, because I still enjoy it each year. That special was the first time I heard "The Chipmunk Song." And I eventually had a few Chipmunks Christmas LPs. Christmas music is of course tied to my earliest yuletide memories, from The Chipmunks and the music from The Grinch, Charlie Brown, Mickey Mouse, and the Rankin Bass cartoons to the more rock and roll Christmas songs my parents could play from John Lennon, Elvis, and of course, The Beach Boys.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 10, 2020 12:51:18 GMT
I actually don't remember all that much popular Christmas music in the house, with the exception of Charlie Brown Christmas. We didn't have that album, but we watched it every year and to this day I think it's one of the great Christmas albums there has ever been.
Most of my earliest Christmas music memories were of rehearsing for school and church pageants, going caroling, or my dad playing them on piano (or occasionally guitar). It's only later that I remember there being popular Christmas albums around, like when I got Merry Axe-mas much later. (In those early teen years, I was always trying to find something "cool" that I could also play in front of my parents and get some kind of approval from them at the same time.)
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Post by kds on Sept 10, 2020 13:20:08 GMT
I actually don't remember all that much popular Christmas music in the house, with the exception of Charlie Brown Christmas. We didn't have that album, but we watched it every year and to this day I think it's one of the great Christmas albums there has ever been.
Most of my earliest Christmas music memories were of rehearsing for school and church pageants, going caroling, or my dad playing them on piano (or occasionally guitar). It's only later that I remember there being popular Christmas albums around, like when I got Merry Axe-mas much later. (In those early teen years, I was always trying to find something "cool" that I could also play in front of my parents and get some kind of approval from them at the same time.)
We never had the Charlie Brown Christmas album. I didn't get that until I was an adult, but I knew the music from TV viewings. I do remember some of those elementary school pageants. "Must Be Santa" is still ingrained in my brain from singing it in kindergarten.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Sept 10, 2020 16:59:07 GMT
I actually don't remember all that much popular Christmas music in the house... Oh, I do. We only had four Christmas albums - Mario Lanza, Perry Como, Sammy Kaye, and Don Janses's Children Choir - but looking back, listening to that music is some of the best Christmas memories I have as a child. Later, each year my Dad and I used to go to the local Goodyear and Firestone tire stores where they issued yearly Christmas albums which were basically comps of the big recording artists of the day - Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, and others. Great albums. Great memories of the Christmas season.
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Post by kds on Sept 10, 2020 18:12:15 GMT
Other than the BB Christmas Album, which I specifically remember my father playing at a very young age, I don't really recall how I heard the various songs by Lennon, Elvis, etc. Maybe on the radio, or on random comps, but not sure which. I know when I got to be around eight or nine, my father got a promo Christmas sampler CD that included Lennon, AC/DC, Billy Squier, The Eagles, Heart, and Elton John among others, as well as a Mickey Mouse Family Christmas album. I know the latter provided the soundtrack to trimming the tree from about age 8 to age 21.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 10, 2020 21:27:15 GMT
Time for a couple more questions. As this thread goes ahead, I'll repost old ones in italics and add the new ones beneath them. That way people can catch up quickly if they feel like answering old questions they hadn't gotten to earlier.
Questions: The first song you remember liking.
The first song—excluding literal children’s music—that you recall becoming embarrassed at having previously liked.
The song or artist that awakened you to romantic possibilities. (“Girls/Boys like music, too? Well, now!”)
A song or artist you recall being turned on to by a “cool person’s” recommendation. (Just anyone you looked up to: sibling, friend, guy at the record store, whatever.)
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