Don’t you love youtube!
Stumbled across these two Wham! music clips on youtube. I have heard these two songs many times, but have never watched the videos – too funny! Usually when I watch movies/MTV etc, I may get inspired for my photography. Fear not, I don’t think I’ll photoshop my images into 80’s style!
I was still in Hong Kong when I first heard these two songs – I was about to leave for Australia, and my best friend from 7th and 8th grade made me a cassette tape with some of her favorite English songs. Yes, cassette tape… I am dating myself here! These two songs were on the tape, so when I hear them, I automatically associated them with her, and our time together. That was 17 years ago. I think I still have the tape with me somewhere, when I packed to come to the US. However, I no longer have a cassette tape player!
Careless Whisper
Wake Me Up, Before You Go-Go
Ummm… found another clip from another phase of my life – high school in Australia. Caligula was an Australian band, which a friend introduced me to, along with Pearl Jam (ha, more tapes!)… I remember really liking one of their songs, “Tears of a Clown”, but I can’t find it on youtube. Found this other song though, “Before”, which was also on the tape.
You know, when you listen to a certain song, you’ll always associate it with something or someone?
Everytime I hear Gangsta’s Paradise (Coolio) I thought of this friend from uni/college in Melbourne. And everything I hear it, I feel sad. Because this song was popular around the time he passed away (not because he was a ganster, I don’t think!) and I heard it on the radio often after I heard the news – to this day, I still don’t know if it was an accident or suicide, as he was hit by a train. I wasn’t even that close to him, but his death was the first I’d experienced of someone close to my age. Someone who was still young and carefree. It was one of those “critical moments” of my life. I went to his Hindu (I think) funeral at his house. I had never met his family before. To this date, I still clearly remember the expressionless face of his dad – expressionless not because he didn’t care, but expressionless because he was too in too much pain. He just had this blank look on his face, like he wasn’t there. His younger sister kept crying his name in a high pitch voice, over and over and over again. I looked around, saw his text books on the bookshelf – the pink biology textbook that we used in the class we shared. I broke down.
I don’t want to end this post on a depressing note. Another song I love is Right Here Waiting by Richard Marx. It was another song on the tape my Hong Kong best friend made (see above, Wham!) so I had always liked this song back then. Years later, I met Justin (husband) and he was visiting me in Melbourne (we were in a long distance relationship for 5 years – he was in MN, I was in Australia). Now, Justin is into 80’s rock like Def Lepard, Ozzy Osbourne/Black Sabbath. One day, Right Here Waiting came on the radio while we were talking in the living room. He interrupted me, and told me to listen to this song. I was like, okay? What about it? He told me then he likes this song, which surprised me since it wasn’t really his type of music. He asked me to listen to the lyrics- it really described our situation… “ocean apart, day after day, and I slowly go insane…” That was then I told him I have always liked this song too (but hadn’t told him before) and in fact, when I heard it, I thought of him. This is how this became “our song”.
I found out that Richard Marx will be coming to Rochester MN next May (5/8/09) as part of the Riverside Concert! Ha, Air Supply will be here on 2/8/09 (their songs were on the Wham! tape mentioned above).
Almost made me want to go get a tape recorder to listen to my old tapes 
Though I fear they will be wrecked. My oldest tape was when I first started learning to talk… no videos, just tapes and photos then. My parents said my favourite tape back then was Boney M! This is the song I remember the most – Daddy Cool:
