Top Tracks of My Childhood
#1 Songs From My Formative Years
I turned 30 a few months ago and as an experiment, I decided to check out which songs were number 1 on my birthday for the last 30 years.
Given that my birthday is in December - I fully expected almost every year to be All I Want for Christmas is You, which came out in 1994.
I was wrong. So let’s take a trip down memory lane.
When I was born: Hero, Mariah Carey
I don’t have any core memories with this song, though I know I’ve heard it before. Probably sung horribly in an American Idol audition tape many years after its release, given that I was a fresh newborn while this song was number one.
When I was 10: Lose Yourself, Eminem
This song IS a core memory. I literally referenced it YESTERDAY while I was writing copy for a web page for the O-shot (a.k.a. the Orgasm Shot). I wrote: “It’s only one shot do not miss your chance to O.” Which I deleted because it didn’t fit the client’s “voice and tone” or whatever. I also once drafted “Help your skin snap back to reality” as a heading for a laser skin tightening page. (Also deleted.)
TBH I’ve never watched 8 Mile, but this song was so integral to growing up in the aughts. It still gets me hyped.
When I was 16: Single Ladies, Beyonce
What can I say about Single Ladies that hasn’t already been said? It’s iconic.
Did it make sense for me and my young teenage friends to be so obsessed with a song about dancing in a club to emotionally punish a man for not marrying us? In retrospect, maybe not.
But also we were growing up in the middle of America where the general aura of expectation for the future of young girls was that you were gonna find a man who could build a white picket fence while you had babies instead of dreams. It was empowering to hear a song that told us we didn’t have to care that a man didn’t want to marry us and that we could put drink in our cup and go find another one in the club.
A bit hard to do when the club is your suburban high school gymnasium. Slim pickings to say the least.
When I was 18: Firework, Katy Perry
I “came of age” and hated this song. I thought the chorus slapped, don’t get me wrong, but the verses frustrated me a hilarious amount looking back. I felt like the cliched verses did the chorus a disservice. What a cool opinion to have. (*cough* nerd)
Then I went on to be an English major and spent 4 years of my life learning how to dissect word choice, be critical of writing, and have opinions about pieces of writing that really don’t matter at all in the grand scheme of things.
Now I like this song. It’s honestly a bop, but it is silly.
And of course, I’ve never been able to look at a plastic bag drifting through the wind the same ever again. Isn’t that the point of art? To change people’s lives and make them see the world differently?
When I was 21: Timber, Pitbull, Kesha
I’m not in any way trying to endorse Pitbull, he’s probably done something problematic at this point. Just based on the lyrics to the songs I heard growing up, I would not be surprised but, frankly, I don’t pay attention to him.
[Side note: after writing that I went to his Wikipedia page and yikes. You know you’re in trouble when you have a full section dedicated to your “Controversies”]
At the time this particular song came out I was old enough to drink legally and the dancing in the club songs started making sense. I loved this song for Kesha’s contribution the most. It felt clever and fun: “It’s going down, I’m yelling timber.”
When I turned 30: All I Want For Christmas Is You, Mariah Carey
Like I said, this song was released in 1994. But it had a bit of resurgence and actually hit number one on my birthday 4 years prior when I was turning 26, but after a couple of years, it hit the top again this last December.
This song is peak Christmas but was recorded in August. Mariah apparently decorated her house for Christmas in the middle of the summer, which honestly, is a dedication to our art we should all aspire to on some level.
I’ll be performing with my pal Melissa Ferrer-Civil, Kansas City’s FIRST EVER Poet Laureate, and some other powerhouse KC poets on April 21st at 6 pm at Greenwood Social Hall.
That’s it for now pals!