Memory is perplexing, and unfair. I can’t remember the funniest thing my kids did just last week but I can recall countless inane moments from thirty years ago in vivid detail. I’d much rather have gloriously detailed memories of my children’s lives than the pointless goings-on of a grade five geography class back in 1983, […]
My Life is a Song #101
This has been an odd summer, mostly because it has actually been a summer. Not that Calgary is renowned for its summers, but last year we had near perpetual spring. And not the “yay, winter is over and the tulips are blooming” kind of spring but rather the “dear god, when will this rain end” […]
My Life Is A Song #98
I’ve never owned a plentiful amount of record albums in my lifetime, but I’ve owned some interesting ones. I wish I could say it was the result of an exceptionally discerning use of my allowance but the more likely truth is that I was just weird. I didn’t exactly shy away from popular music. I […]
My Life Is A Song #96
One night in St. Jacobs, the old fable of the City Mouse and the Country Mouse played out in real life within the bland, beige box that was my childhood bedroom. I, as you rightly presume, starred as the Country Mouse. It was 1985, most likely later March or possibly early April, and a rather […]
My Life Is A Song #95
I went to a small town, K-8, elementary school. I shared a class with pretty much the same 25 kids every year. In the upper years, I can’t remember in which it started, we did class gift exchanges at Christmas. We’d each draw a name from a hat and give whichever classmate we pulled a […]
My Life Is A Song #94
As I do more and more of this little musical blogs, I’m becoming all the more cognizant of the fact that 1984 was a spectacular year for music. Maybe it just feels that way since I was twelve in 1984 and came of age with music that year. Or maybe it really was a fantastic […]
My Life Is A Song #91
I remain skeptical of how accurately pop culture portrays reality but I think it’s safe to say most couples have “their song.” Typically it’s a song associated with a special moment in their relationship. Perhaps it was the song the house DJ was playing the night they first met at the meat market dance club […]
My Life Is A Song #85
I was a timid child. Still am, to be honest. Few things make me more uncomfortable than talking on the phone, having to make calls being the worst. Luckily I was also the oldest child so I had a younger sister I could browbeat into doing those things I desperately wanted to do but was […]
My Life Is A Song #77
This song just might be too dangerous to play. I’m talking an eighties one hit wonder with not one, but TWO modes of audience participation (clapping AND response singing during chorus), a title almost everyone screws up, and peculiar lyrics including the gem “labadab dab dab life”. Add in the fact I owned this on […]
My Life Is A Song #76
I am no Deadhead. I appreciate their better known songs like “Casey Jones” and “Sugar Magnolia” and “Uncle John’s Band” but frankly, I know nothing about the band and likely never will. Furthermore, what I’m about to say will undoubtedly make genuine Deadheads cringe. I love their one charting hit. I really do. What can […]