Oh. Oh. Oh.

Sounds for when words fail

Music has always saved me.

My family moved from San Francisco to the suburb of Hillsborough 25 minutes away. The summer before I started a new school, the house was sparsely furnished and my brother and I used the space to run, dance and lip sync to our favorite songs on the radio. No one worried about the lyrics of Rick James’ Super Freak coming out of the mouths of a 7 and 9 year old, least of all my immigrant parents.

Then, we finally got a record player. My father set it up in the empty, brown carpeted dining room where my brother and I created our own two person band. He played air guitar and I lip synced Men At Work:

Who can it be knocking at my door?

Go 'way, don't come 'round here no more

Can't you see that it's late at night?

I'm very tired and I'm not feeling right

All I wish is to be alone

Stay away, don't you invade my home

Best off if you hang outside

Don't come in, I'll only run and hide

By my teenage years, I would only want to run and hide. In my room, with my own boom box, listening to the radio and recording songs I liked on tape. Missing the radio DJ say the name of the song/waiting for it to be replayed later in the day/writing it down/taking it to Rainbow Records at Hillsdale Mall.

When I didn’t know the song, I’d have to describe it to the clerk who tried to help me narrow it down. Once, I’d heard a song that made me stop but I had missed the name of the band.

Looking up at the clerk on the platformed register, I said, trying not to sound stupid, They sound like The Cure; a new song. I had that feeling in my stomach, the one that says, you won’t get what you want.

I think I know, the Clerk said disappearing into crates then coming back with a white album with a hand drawn cover.

Crimson Ivy, I think you’ll like them, he said.

This was hope, however small.

But the song I searched for wasn’t on the album after all. Then, one day driving down El Camino in my White Mazda 323 “The Egg,” the song came on again. The song was indeed The Cure. It’s still one of my favorites.

***

I listened to KITS radio in my teens, studying music like it was my job as a teenager. The Thompson Twins, David Bowie, Talking Heads, The Smiths, R.E.M., Depeche Mode.

But one song stopped me in my depressed teenage tracks.

When routine bites hard and ambitions are low

And resentment rides high, but emotions won't grow

And we're changing our ways, taking different roads

Then love, love will tear us apart again

Love, love will tear us apart again

I heard Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart in my bedroom, where I could always be found those days. Here was a frequency that matched mine, needed no explanations. I taped up the Atmosphere poster against the pastel butterfly wallpaper like a bandaid.

Your Prompt: How has music affected you during a difficult time? Or how does it represent a celebratory time? What was the anthem of your youth? Or the anthem of your hard time?