867-5309/Jenny We Built This City

This is a story about smart radio promotion, and a couple of songs that lent themselves to it.

Did any of you ever actually dial “867-5309?” I did, way back in the day when I was about 6 or 7 years old (even though the song came out when I was 4.)

The song itself describes a “mating call,” if you will, that is always some variation of “For a good time call (insert phone number here)” which was typically written on a bathroom stall or wall. That started way before hook-up apps and the internet, obviously. But apparently it never really died.

The hilarious part was that unless it was a guy looking for another guy, it was usually a prank of some sort. I mean, how would a girl get into a guy’s restroom to write her number on the stall? I was reading some of the anecdotal accounts about this trend, and a lot of times it was a guy pranking other guys, sometimes putting one of their friends' numbers up there, and the friend never knew until he started getting lots of calls.

I was looking up the history of this song and the subsequent cultural phenomenon of this specific phone number. For context, this was before people dialed the area codes preceding the 7-digit number, unless it was a “long distance” call, which was an extra charge every time. (Remember that shit? Younger people today take for granted they can call anyone across the country with no extra cost.) You just dialed 7 digits and called whoever was in your locale. I can’t imagine this song with a 10-digit number; there’s no way it could possibly be this catchy.

According to which band member you asked, they had conflicting stories about the origin of the lyrics. Lead guitarist Jim Keller and lead singer Tommy Heath both claimed it was a real girl with a real number, but their stories otherwise contradicted each other. Jim said he actually dated the girl after calling her number he saw written on a men’s bathroom stall, but Tommy said Jenny was his friend whose number he wrote on a motel bathroom wall as a prank.

However, co-writer Alex Call later debunked both of their stories, explaining that the band went with these accounts because it made for a more interesting tale. He came up with it while trying to write a 4-chord rock song, and the lyrics just fit perfectly. But there was no Jenny, and the number didn’t belong to anyone he actually knew.

I have a real soft spot for this song. The lyrics may be cheesy, but the chord progression gets in my head and takes up space for days, along with the really addictive hook of the chorus. It was on the air frequently when I had just begun to fall in love with pop radio. And that station I listened to almost exclusively was called KHTR 103 in my hometown of St. Louis.

I strongly recommend looking up some of the hilarious stories about people who dialed this number. A lot of people who owned the number had to change it, and one company sued another company because they both bought the number (in different cities) and tried to trademark it. And there are many more that are worth a read.

When I actually dialed the number back then, it played a recording with the song in the background: “Thank you for listening to KHTR 103, where you can hear all the greatest hits like ‘Jenny’ by Tommy Tutone!” My young self thought that was so cool! I was excited to tell everyone I could about it.

Props to them for buying the number for such a clever yet simple marketing tactic.

Fast-forward to 1986, when Starship released their song “We Built This City.” Oh man, I fucking loved this song back then. The harmonies of the chorus, the driving synths, and guitar riffs throughout had me hooked. And this level of production that made the song sound so big blew my mind. The sound of it takes up so much space. The video was cool too, although Grace Slick’s face kind of scared me as a kid. But my absolute favorite part of this song, even to this day, is the pre-chorus of “Marconi plays the mamba / Listen to the radio / Don’t you remember? We built this city…” Even after all of these years, that part gives me goosebumps. I’m listening to it right now as I write, and I’m getting choked up a bit. I don’t know if it’s just nostalgia, longing for a time when I actually wanted to listen to the radio… no, wait fuck that. It’s also the quality of the songwriting that I will definitely still go to bat for.

But getting back to radio promotion, the final pre-chorus of the song drops out the singing, and instead plays a DJ from a fictional San Francisco radio station talking about “The city by the bay, the city that rocks.” I didn’t know this until recently, but Starship also released a version of the song as a B-side that left the DJ part intentionally empty so local stations could dub their own promotions into it.

However, as a 9-year-old kid, I one day realized after several listens that the DJ in the song was talking about St. Louis and KHTR 103. I was so amazed by this. I could only imagine that Starship recorded different versions for each city, or they worked some incredible magic on the song to do that. So fucking clever.

There are other instances of this from back then, like Huey Lewis and the News' “The Heart Of Rock & Roll.” The original song has an outro where Huey shouts out names of cities like “Cleveland” and “Detroit!” The KHTR version apparently replaced these with “St. Louis” and “Champaign, Illinois!” Hilarious.

I have a lot more to write about radio in the 80s, but KHTR 103.3 will always have a special place in my heart, as do both of these songs.

[www.youtube.com/watch

This is a story about a boy named S (using only initials for this one, so not to embarrass anyone I mention), who I had a crush on all 4 years of high school (and then he continued to haunt my dreams for another decade after that.) His lasting hold over me was about as long as this damn song.

I don’t love that I’m writing about the song. I wouldn’t say I particularly hate it. I mean, I have sung it at karaoke a few times before. This is fairly far out of the realm of my music taste, though.

But S loved this song, and at the time, I tried to love it too. And it will always make me think of him.

S was short and beefy, with copper-toned red hair, an adorable face, and he had these freckles on his arms that were so cute. He was a jock, playing football all throughout high school, but he was also crazy intelligent, being my classmate in all of the honors classes I was in. Athletic and smart?? This rare combo had me swooning. He also just dripped with masculinity. Maybe the pheromones got me hooked too.

He was really into classic rock. I honestly could’ve picked some other songs he liked, like REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” which would’ve matched how I felt back then. Or shit, anything by Tom Petty, or Boston. But since this Meatloaf song came out when we were actually in high school, it seemed more appropriate.

I thought it was a little odd he liked this song so much, as theatrical and musical-esque it is. But it didn’t matter to him. I remember specifically he liked the female near the end singing “Will you hose me down with holy water, if I get too hot?” Of course he did.

Honestly, back then, I would’ve done anything for love. Look, straight people have it easy. They can flirt with someone they’re attracted to and there’s a 90 percent chance they’re also straight (or bi) too. When gays and lesbians are attracted to someone and want to let them know, they’re rolling the dice, barring places and situations where the demographic is primarily LGBTQ+.

Back then, most of us gays didn’t come out until after high school, sometimes way after. And we wouldn’t dream of hitting on or professing our feelings to the classmates we were attracted to. (Although, one of my later boyfriends told me he got to fuck half of his high school wrestling team. He might’ve been full of shit but man that made me jealous.)

I think after we all graduated I found out there were 3 or 4 of us in our 1995 class that came out as gay or lesbian, although I’m not really sure I remember who. And only one of them was obvious before that. He was a guy named R and, I wouldn’t say he was flamboyant, but just little mannerisms and the way he spoke clued us all in. Plus he wrote and performed in his own play for the school that was all about AIDS and it had R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” playing during one of the scenes. Like, come on, we knew.

Anyway, the 10 percent odds wouldn’t have mattered with S. He was very clearly straight. He flirted with and dated girls. Also, you know, FOOTBALL. And he would say stuff that was painfully straight. I remember one time in art class the teacher was playing the radio and Depeche Mode’s “People Are People” came on. When he heard the line “I can’t understand, what makes a man…” he felt the need to say “I’ll show you what makes a man” as he grabbed his nuts. I mean, at the time I thought it was really hot. But watch me eye-roll about that shit now. Like, aside from completely ignoring the next line of the song “…hate another man?” The toxic-masculinity showboating was just so cringe.

Being around S made me feel so small, unsure and insecure. I mean, MORE insecure than my usual self back then. Meatloaf as The Beast/Phantom Of The Opera in this video, while longing to love the beautiful woman in his castle; that’s very relatable to how I felt then. I was a good looking kid, no lie. But I could never see it that way. And my basis for that negative view was rooted in thinking that the boys I was attracted to were never going to want me that way. Not really a fair self-criticism because the lack of attraction had nothing to do with my actual looks; I was just the wrong gender. But man it made me feel ugly and undeserving of love, especially from someone I found to be so beautiful. That kind of thinking took forever to overcome.

All the same, as the years of high school went on, I became more and more obsessed with him. And there wasn’t anyone I could talk to about it. I had to go through that 4-year emotional rollercoaster all on my own. Junior year was definitely the worst. I would get so nervous and excited when I heard his voice or knew he was nearby. Lots of masturbatory fantasizing, obviously. Also I was pretending my pillow was his face and kissing it like I wished to kiss him.

One cringy moment happened one day in the library, when we were supposed to be studying but were actually just dicking around. I joined S and some other kids (can’t remember who) in one of the tucked away corners of the library, where no teachers were nearby. They started playing the knockout game, if that’s what it’s even called. You know, one person puts their hands on their knees and takes 10 really deep breaths. They hold the last breath and stand upright, while another person squeezes the sides of their neck to cut off circulation, and it knocks the person out, until a few seconds later when they come to.

If I’m being honest I always loved that feeling when you’re about to lose consciousness and you feel your muscles relax in a euphoric way. These days I just get that experience from being old and standing up too fast.

I saw S do it to another classmate, his thick jock-y hands around their neck. I promise, I’m not into choking (not that there’s anything wrong with that.) But if the guy is hot enough I could suddenly do anything for love, right? I convinced S to do it to me next, and before blacking out I remember I was so excited he was even touching me, let alone gripping me with a manly grip. Then I came to on the floor, and he gave me his hand to pull me up. A true gentleman, and he touched me again. I honestly don’t know how I didn’t jizz my pants, as the over-excited ball of teenage hormones I was.

But the cringiest thing was after my dad gave me their old ‘86 Dodge Caravan to drive. I hate to admit it but I drove by his house A LOT. It wasn’t even near my house, or the school, so I would come up with excuses to drive all the way over to his street. I was praying that one of those times I drove by I would see him cutting the front lawn with his shirt off.

It wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to be closer to him. So how could I get closer to a guy I had a crush on without actually trying to date him? My solution was trying to become a closer friend to him. Which, in hindsight, was pretty ridiculous, yet I’m sure a lot of people can relate. (Isn’t that a teenage movie trope?) Other than our one honors class we had together, we didn’t have a lot of the same interests. But it didn’t stop me.

I would try to engage him more in conversations about our classwork, but also I’m sure I asked him a lot about music because that’s one thing I could talk to anyone about. Which is why I knew he was into those rock bands. But it wasn’t really getting me anywhere. I was forcing it a bit and talking to me was certainly not a priority for him.

There was also this girl in our class named T, and they talked and heavily flirted a ton. I remember one day they were having a conversation that was something like him saying “Man I wish an orgasm would last for an hour” and her responding “Or an orgasm that never ended, oh my god.” Their faces when having this conversation and looking at each other… I don’t think they actually ever fucked but they should’ve. (S had a serious girlfriend not long after that and he was very loyal to her. Another charming thing about that little fucker.)

Now let me preface this part by saying I actually really liked T. I thought she was so cool. She was captain of the drill team and she would show me these choreographed dances they did to some GREAT songs. A lot of R&B and Hip-Hop, which, as I wrote in my last post, was definitely my thing. I’d say we were friends.

But watching the two of them interact, I would get really jealous. It’s weird, I’ve rarely ever been the jealous type as an adult. Not with most of my boyfriends and certainly not with my husband. It’s a toxic emotion I have no need for. I suppose a teenager with raging hormones who also happened to be a hopeless romantic that wanted what he saw in the movies… couldn’t help feeling some jealousy.

There was one time in class when we were watching a movie, with the lights off. T had just gotten brand new glasses and she was excited to show everyone. S asked her to pass them over to him so he could check them out. I then asked T if I could see them too. S passed them over to me.

And there, in the dark, a side of me came out that was kind of scary. I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking in that moment; I entered a tunnel vision state of envy. I took her new glasses in my hands and twisted the frames to hell, breaking them. And then I passed them back with little remorse.

They got back to T and she stook up and yelled “Jason! Why would you do this to my glasses??” All I could think to say was “I don’t know.” The look on her face wasn’t angry as much as betrayed and shocked that I would do something like that. She was my friend and I just fucked her over. I was supposed to be the nice, quiet kid. I guess I really did turn into a “beast” in that moment. I didn’t deserve to be in the company of such beautiful people (T was really good looking as well, incidentally.)

If I remember right, my dad had to pay her parents to replace the glasses. He was definitely not happy about that. And I’m sure I apologized to T, but I’m not sure it was sincere. If I ever talk to her again I want to make a proper apology to her, even though I’m sure she hardly cares or remembers anymore.

Later on, after pressuring him a lot, S finally invited me to come hang out at his house to study. I was so nervous but I was ready. We were down in his basement; the rest of his family was busy upstairs. We studied a little bit, and then we put the books down and he started playing me a lot of music on his stereo. We listened to all the stuff I mentioned above: a lot of Tom Petty, a bit of Boston I think, definitely REO Speedwagon, because he played “Can’t Fight This Feeling” and I borderline wanted to profess my feelings to him in that moment.

Then he played the Meatloaf song. Before that moment I hated it, I mean, maybe I just hated the beginning because I always turned the dial/channel when it came on. That opening piano was so annoying to me, and I thought the length of the song was ridiculous. Which is kind of crazy, because just two years before I was in love with Guns N’ Roses' “November Rain,” which is also super long, has a lot of piano, has a rock opera-ish vibe, and almost the same format. I was a pretty good piano player back then and I even learned to play “November Rain.”

I wasn’t talented enough to play that piano intro on “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”, it was too fast and intricate. Maybe that’s why I hated it, because I couldn’t play it.

But sitting there with S, listening far more intently because he was into it, I could see the appeal. Although I remember saying to him “What does he mean by ‘that’?? Why doesn’t he just say?” S said at the time the lyric meant he would never cheat on her. FUN FACT! I looked this confusing lyric up while I was writing this, because it was a common criticism of the song. Meatloaf finally said in an interview the “that” was the thing in the line before that he said he’d never do. For instance: “But I’ll never forget the way you feel right now…” that is the “that.” Like how dumb are we that didn’t see this obvious explanation?

I still didn’t love the song after that listen, but like the REO Speedwagon song, this song also made me want to profess my love to him in that moment. I knew it didn’t make sense, but I wanted it anyway. Fortunately I was too chicken-shit to even try that. I dodged a bullet for sure (maybe a literal one??)

After that I don’t really remember how we interacted with each other, I’m guessing probably not a whole lot. I’m sure my mild clinginess was off-putting to him. And senior year we were both busy buckling down to get ready for college, and I was finally able to reinvent myself a bit that year right before I graduated (that’s a story for a different entry.)

Speaking of, after graduating and coming out of the closet, I felt compelled to explain my high school behavior to him. I nervously called him and told him very transparently I had a crush on him, and that’s why I tried so hard to be friends with him, etc. I remember hearing him on the other end, just repeating the same monotone “uh huh” to make it clear he wanted nothing to do with it. I said my piece, and got off the phone. It was so painfully awkward though, and made me feel even worse.

I only saw him once after that, working at a store in the mall. He never saw me; I just happened to see him through the glass as I walked by the store. He had lost his hair, but he still looked really good. I just shrugged and walked away with a forlorn sigh.

The most annoying part about all of this was that I would have random dreams about him for another 10 years or so after high school, and they were never good or fun. Kind of like how a recovered addict will still dream about getting high for years after. I can’t believe he affected me that much. I remember feeling so relieved when those awkward dreams finally stopped.

This many years later, I’ve come to at least appreciate this song. I love some theatrics, I love the video… I guess I love the talent of the song, far more than the song itself. I also love that Celine song that was the same style. Ridiculously long songs can be a lot of fun.

Still, even though I no longer dream about him, I can’t help but think of him when I hear this song. It puts a smile on my face, which has little to do with him, but remembering the young, insecure me who just wanted some attention from the boys he was attracted to. I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self the worn but true cliché “It gets better.”

I wonder where S wound up. I think I’m too embarrassed to ever talk to him again, not that he would want to anyway. But still, I can’t help but wonder a bit. I kind of hope he’s ugly now. But I’m sure he’s not.

Public Enemy, “Can’t Truss It” video

My brother and I grew up in a sheltered religious household. And like a lot of kids in the early 90s, our parents forbade us from listening to heavy metal or rap because it was “dangerous” and sometimes “demonic.”

What we associated the word “rap” with as kids was relatively tame. My brother and I had cassettes by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, MC Hammer and the like. But there was one cultural phenomenon that quickly broadened our love for hip-hop.

We had a small, portable black & white TV that only tuned in UHF channels. There was a channel called The Jukebox that came in on channel 58. You could call a 900 number (which would put an extra charge on your phone bill) and request a music video. At the time we started watching it, it was dominated by hip-hop and R&B artists. It was quite the alternative to typical MTV airplay. (If you’re curious about the cultural impact of that channel, later called “The Box,” this is a great article: https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/the-box-tv-channel-changed-music )

As we huddled around that TV on the floor of my brother’s room, constantly adjusting the antennas to avoid static, we discovered a world of hip-hop we had never heard before. Beats and samples that went so fucking hard, lots of explicit lyrics, and messages and stories from a world we knew nothing about. Instead of rejecting it out of the guilt our parents tried to impose upon us, we both fell in love.

There are so many artists and songs that I first heard on that channel that I will likely write about, but I had to start with Public Enemy. They would plant the first seeds in my head of critically thinking and reexamining everything I was taught about racism.

I honestly could’ve just made this post entirely about their album Fear Of A Black Planet. An absolute masterpiece. But for one, I didn’t actually own and listen to that entire album until I was older. And I also wanted to make sure to include a couple of songs that weren’t on that album.

Public Enemy were one of the pioneers of turning rap into a platform for targeting political issues and racial injustice. Most of the previous rap records released in the 80s had steered clear of that. The music they put out would change hip-hop forever, truly putting it on the mainstream map and making sure, whether people liked it or not, that everyone heard their message.

Also, as far as what really caught my ear when I first heard them, was the production. That’s generally what draws me to any music first. The instrumentation and percussion of a song will pull me in, and only then will I typically start paying attention to the lyrics.

If you want to hear a masterclass in sampling, Fear Of A Black Planet is it. I couldn’t tell you how many samples total as this was created during what some call “the golden age of Hip-Hop,” because it was before record labels and lawyers were paying attention. But at a glance, it appears each track has anywhere from 10-25 each, and that’s just the credited ones. What the Bomb Squad did with the samples though, paired with Terminator X’s furious scratching throughout, that’s what I was floored by. It created a chaotic cacophony that somehow sounded amazing and really complemented the powerful lyrics of Chuck D. To quote the bio of this album on Apple Music, “barbed shards of funk and soul elbow for space, packed tighter than ever before.” They literally brought the noise.

A big part of what I latched on to as well was their presence and image in their videos. Chuck D by himself wasn’t particularly standing out in that regard, but Flavor Flav wowed me. Always wearing a clock around his neck, donning crazy hats and sunglasses, and dripped in brightly colored outfits. You couldn’t ignore him, and it was a signature style no one ever replicated. A lot of people see Flav as a comic caricature, especially later on when the reality show Flavor Of Love was on the air. But his lyrics went toe-to-toe with Chuck D, and were arguably just as impactful. And of course, the presence of Terminator X and the S1W backing up the duo, making it clear that they were not a force to be fucked with.

Then when I was already hooked on their songs and videos, I started to really listen to what Chuck D and Flavor Flav were saying, and I was shocked and confused but also intrigued. No one had ever told me about the things they were addressing, and to be honest I had a hard time reconciling that in my head with what I thought I already knew.

“911 Is A Joke”

I can’t remember if I heard this or “Fight The Power” first, but “911 Is A Joke” is what drew my focus to the group. I love the way it’s a commentary about how a life-saving public health service fails minority and disadvantaged neighborhoods, while also being a crazy good dance jam with an extremely infectious hook at the same time. Shit, since I started writing this, I’ve had “Uh get up, a-get get get down” stuck in my head for days. It’s easily the most dance-inducing track I’ve heard by them.

There’s definitely a comedic element to it as well. It’s hard not to laugh at lines like “thinking you are first when you really are TENTH??” And you can hear a relatively more cohesive ensemble of beats and samples, making for a really entertaining and accessible track. The samples are particularly clever and well placed, one of my favorites being the Vincent Price laugh from MJ’s “Thriller.”

The video made it even more hilarious: the way he swaps between rapping in pajamas inside an open casket, to dancing and preaching to a congregation from a pulpit, backed by a gospel choir who doesn’t really “sing” so much as chant the title of the song and a few call and response shouts of “OW!” And then they cut to some friends walking at night that suddenly call 911 because one of them is having seizures, then later at the end of the video, the guy is still having seizures the next day in the same spot on the sidewalk, with no ambulance in sight.

But you know, hearing this as a kid growing up in the predominantly-white suburbs, I remember thinking, “Is that really true?” I had always thought they were pretty efficient from what I’d seen, and yeah, they were, for our community. Yet, why would they lie, right?

I didn’t understand until much later the real reasons for the disparity, but I at least began to recognize it, even though I still found it slightly unbelievable.

“Burn Hollywood Burn”

I found this track to be pretty relatable as an adult who is part of a different minority group. The lyrics put a stark spotlight on cinema only portraying black characters as stereotypes or caricatures, instead of being representative of real people. In the same breath, it calls out television and the media as well, tending to always paint black folk as criminals or some other undesirable facet of society.

While not exactly the same, I had felt this way for years regarding the portrayal of queer folk in the media, as hyperbolic versions of very narrow vignettes that were misrepresenting the majority of us. It was always the extra-effeminate comic relief that, if the character even mentioned sexuality at all, it was in double-entendres meant to get a laugh by way of shocking the audience. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve met gay men like that and there’s nothing wrong with them presenting that way. But it never represented me at all. Also they might have been portrayed as villainous or in some negative fashion, or at the very worst, dying of AIDS, looking frail and diseased until their inevitable demise, usually completely alone. As if to say just being a homosexual was a death sentence.

Before even really criticizing movies, Chuck D’s verse calls out the news' relentless hyperfocus on stories of shootings and violence caused by black men, asserting: “So all I hear about is shots ringin' out / About gangs puttin' each other’s head out.” I’m not going to lie. As a teenager I had developed an irrational fear of black people, that looking back, was heavily influenced by what I heard and saw on the news. And my parents and other white authority figures in my life only reinforced this fear. It’s not that the violence was all made up. It’s just that you never heard on the news about black people doing anything else. There was a convenient omittance of positive stories from their demographic.

My mom and dad were quick to always say they were “not prejudiced.” I believed them back then. My dad still says that phrase to this day. But you know, like many white parents back then, they would teach me not to discriminate against “good” blacks, but also telling me to be wary of the “bad” ones. They put ideas in my head that if they would just try hard in school and get decent jobs, they would rise above their environment. Easy, right?

So I did my best to make distinctions like this. The Cosby Show (lol), black anchormen on the news, Denzel Washington, black Christians… these must be the “good” ones. And the rest were to be feared. I couldn’t look most of my black schoolmates in the eye, and I was even more afraid of talking to them. One time there was a (gang-related? at least that was the news portrayal) shooting at the mall across from our middle school that I always went to play arcade games at, and my parents didn’t want us going back there on our own for quite awhile.

And even listening to black artists' music, a lot of them would speak out against their own kind killing each other. Which made me think “yeah! you tell ‘em!” I’m not proud of it. I know I was missing a big part of the point. But this was the way the environment I was in influenced me.

Chuck then quickly dives into the crux of the song, as a strong protest against Hollywood’s portrayal of black characters: “For all the years we looked like clowns / the joke is over, smell the smoke from all around.” At the time, I didn’t quite grasp the big picture. The things I know about now: minstrel shows/blackface, unnecessary or negative stereotypes, the white savior complex… it would be a long time before I learned about these.

All I knew back then is what I heard in the song. These guys were PISSED OFF about films like Driving Miss Daisy. Which again, planted a seed, in the form of questions: “What’s wrong with that movie? Why do they hate it? They must have a reason, what is it?”

I also remember when I was young being really excited if a song by an artist I loved had a cameo from other artists I loved. (Okay, maybe I still get excited about a good cameo.) Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane each contribute a powerful verse to this track. Cube takes his moment to pivot the message towards police and their frequent racial profiling. Kane follows up nicely, swinging back to film, shining a spotlight of scathing criticism of the limited roles for black characters: “In the movies, portraying the roles / of butlers and maids, slaves and hoes.” And he wraps it up with a call to action: “So let’s make our own movies like Spike Lee.” This is my favorite verse on the track.

The outro is a couple of quick sketches by the four, and I was hearing names I’d never heard of before, like Huey P. Newton and Black Caesar that piqued my curiosity. Unfortunately this was before the internet, so I couldn’t Google these names to learn more, and they sure as hell weren’t teaching us about these things in school.

“Can’t Truss It”

I heard this one later on, when the album Apocalypse ‘91… The Enemy Strikes Black came out. I was in middle school for the two songs mentioned above, but this dropped literally a few days after I started my first year of high school. This was my favorite PE track I had heard to date. I didn’t really know the words but I loved to chant along with a repeated “Can’t truss it!” in the chorus.

I entered high school thinking that I could forge a new, cooler identity than that kid that got bullied a lot in middle school. Maybe I didn’t have the clothes or the charisma but I liked damn good music, and I thought that would carry me.

I wasn’t long into freshman year before I found myself changing in the gym locker room, and two of my (incidentally) black classmates decided to start wailing on me with repeated punches to the head. I’m still not entirely sure why; I just assume I was an easy target for bullies. In a desperate attempt to just get them to stop I shouted something to the effect “Dude, I’m cool! I listen to rap!” Yeesh. Keyword: desperate.

They did stop punching me, at least, but only to ridicule me for my statement. They asked in an “oh yeah?” fashion what rap I listened to, and I mentioned this song. They laughed their asses off, like I had no idea what I was talking about. I mean, I didn’t. But there was no right answer there. At least they left me alone after that. It’s a bad memory I always associate with this song, but it didn’t change my love for it.

This song goes fucking HARD. The intro features a sample of Malcolm X speaking out against leaders who would say non-violent protest is the only way forward. I certainly did not understand this message back then, if I even heard it clearly. I was always taught by teachers and my parents that MLK’s style of peaceful protest was the only “right” method. Violence was “never the answer.”

I remember later watching the 1992 L.A. Riots on TV, wide-eyed and confused. I understood Rodney King being needlessly beaten. I also understood the police not being held accountable. But how could anyone justify such mass chaotic violence and looting? It didn’t register in my young brain.

I came to understand much more recently that peaceful protest can only do so much. It was an intertwining of my experience of committing to the fight against oppression of my own queer community, and also, like many of us white folks in 2020, suddenly seeing things much clearer following the murder of George Floyd, and wanting to help those who are more marginalized than myself. Oppressors will never return the favor of peace. Sometimes you have to take extreme measures to make these fuckers finally pay attention and affect change.

The sample drops out, and in an unusual but powerful way to kick off the beat, Chuck shouts “Here come the drums!” in unison with Flav shouting “Confusion!” Like “here come the drum-sion” or something. And then comes the catchy trumpet sample and the iconic opening line “Bass in your face, not an 8-track!” In the first 50 seconds they have pulled the listener in and demanded their attention.

I’m also a sucker for samples of singers from Asia, the Middle-East, Africa etc that get worked into Hip-Hop songs, so the brief vocal of the Israeli singer Ofra Haza on loop through the 2nd and 3rd chorus I found really appealing. (See also: M/A/R/R/S’ “Pump Up The Volume” sampling a Lebanese vocal.)

Then, the imagery of the video paired with the rhymes illustrates an allegory equating slavery with the systemic bondage of the black community that’s still going on, the implication being that slavery never really ended.

I definitely knew slavery was outright wrong. But even after seeing and hearing this song, I didn’t quite grasp the comparison. They were free now, right? Everything is desegregated these days, isn’t it? Yet like so many songs from my childhood, they were the seeds planted that would become an “a-ha!” moment much later in adulthood.

“Fight The Power”

The best protest song of all time, hands down. I doubt most would argue with me. The thing is, the lyrics require very little exposition because in many ways the power of it comes more from the “Funky Drummer” beat (always a fan of that one), the samples like the constant shout of “Yes!” and the repetitious chanting of the title that hypes you up and energizes you to action.

This is not to say the lyrics aren’t important. It’s just that unlike many of their other songs, there’s less exposure and teaching of historic facts that were hidden, and more of a call to come together, to elevate and protect each other and ourselves, and stand united against injustice.

Chuck does do a little bit of that signature criticism in the 3rd verse, calling out Elvis and John Wayne for their abject racism that often went unmentioned. This was pretty crucial to my young ears, as my mom loved Elvis and my grandpa really loved John Wayne. And I had to wonder again why those typically revered figures were being slammed in the song.

But that aside, the song is more of a powerful force for protest than inspiring critical thinking of history.

Even more influential on my young mind than the song itself was the music video. It wasn’t just a video, it was an event. The song was created as a collaboration with Spike Lee to be the theme for his film “Do The Right Thing.” Fittingly, he also directed the video. I honestly don’t know who else could’ve made this video so impactful.

It opens on a block party in Brooklyn, packed with a crowd of people dancing and shouting, and as the camera moves forward you see a stage, with the words “Fight The Power” in military-style stencil lettering above an image of Malcom X on the right and the Public Enemy logo with the man in crosshairs on the left. The crowd continues to dance and shout as Chuck and Flav make their way through. Terminator X stood tall and stone-faced, looming right behind them, and Professor Griff and S1W holding up the rear, occasionally doing military-style choregraphed dances to the song. Absolutely enrapturing, to be sure.

I almost feel like I have to apologize for the way my young eyes interpreted this. I felt that same unjustifiable yet learned fear I wrote about above. “I don’t belong there” was the thought running through my head. I also felt like I never wanted to be anywhere near there. Because of conditioning, I expected disorder and violence when I saw a large group of African-Americans in one place. And if I was there, surely I would get shot. But at the same time, it also looked like so much fun. And in that way, I wished I felt like I could join.

What I couldn’t see until much later is how necessary and joyful it really was. In June 2020 my husband and I decided we would go downtown to march in a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Austin. I had never done anything like that before. There were a lot of combined fears happening here that made me want to talk myself out of it. But not the same irrational fear as I mentioned above. The main fear was COVID, obviously. I was also afraid to take up space in a protest that I might not really belong in. And also I was afraid of getting caught in the violence of the police; a couple days before they had deployed pepper spray and rubber bullets against the crowd, resulting in a lot of injuries.

But we went. We felt like it was too important to miss. And it wound up being a really wonderful experience. It wasn’t difficult. You just had to march with everyone and follow the lead of the guy with the megaphone to chant in protest. And there were a lot of allies like us interspersed into the crowd as well. We were welcome there.

To turn to one end of the street and back to the other and see no end to the crown on either side… that was powerful. And it gave me hope, that there are more good people in the world than I gave it credit for.

And so, looking back at that video now, I can really see it for what it really is. In fact, in that 2020 march, there was a guy on a motorcycle with a giant boombox, and he alternated blasting this song with Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright.” (Second best protest song of all time.) I could see in person the powerful effect of “Fight The Power.” Even though I had it all wrong back then, the song would always stay with me as a favorite. And to belabor the point, it planted more seeds.

Other Important Mentions

“Brothers Gonna Work It Out” and “Welcome To The Terrordome” are tracks I love for similar reasons. They really bring out that chaotic sound of clashing samples that I absolutely love about Fear Of A Black Planet, and honestly that style of cacophony was something I loved about a lot of that earlier rap sound, in tracks by N.W.A., Above The Law, MC Breed etc. That Prince guitar sample that just relentlessly repeats through “Brothers Gonna Work It Out” and how it clashes with the beat and the other samples is the best example I can think of. It shouldn’t work but it does, really well in fact. “Welcome to The Terrordome” is less pronounced in that way but that last note of the intro riff is just sheer noisy chaos. Delightful.

“Bring Tha Noize (ft. Anthrax)” is just sheer fun. Not gonna lie but I couldn’t name a single song by Anthrax other than this one. But the rap/rock combo is a formula that has stood the test of time, and broadens either genre to a larger listening demographic. I love the juxtaposition of distorted guitars and double-bass pedal against drum samples and raps. And Scott Ian is a surprisingly good rapper.

I’m also a fan of Chuck D’s cameos on “Kool Thing” by Sonic Youth and “New Agenda” by Janet Jackson. It’s not entirely surprising that Chuck worked with Sonic Youth; Public Enemy arguably gives hip-hop a punk vibe. Also, I appreciate that with either of these songs he has no issue being backup to these two legendary female artists (Janet and Kim Gordon I mean) and demonstrates he’s also a feminist.

Lastly I feel like I have to mention “Don’t Believe The Hype” even though I didn’t really know that track well back in the day. I think mostly why I even knew of it was because of its mention in a few of their other songs, mixing that song title in with other sets of lyrics. It’s like an important motif for the group’s music.

Public Enemy was the first rap group to affect me this way, but certainly wouldn’t be the last. Music is such a powerful vehicle for important stories, messages and lessons. And they were messages kids like me needed to hear.

I’ve learned a lot over the years about allyship to the black community. And I’ve also used what I’ve learned from their struggles as key reminders for how to fight for my own community’s equality: when to shout, when to be quiet, when to fight, when to run and so on.

But of course, I will never be done learning. That’s the point, right? Be always willing to learn, evolve, listen and be called out. Shit, I probably got something in this blog wrong. (So please call me out!)

All I know for sure is all marginalized groups that suffer from discrimination need to stand together and support each other, and be willing to keep a dialogue open to understand each other as well.

[youtu.be/zpdQQoc-g…

This story is about a crush I had on a girl named Amy in the 3rd grade.

I don’t talk about it very often, but I’m not really 100% gay. I didn’t fully embrace this part of my sexuality until my 40s. I register as a 5 on the Kinsey Scale. I like to say “95/5” or “Reverse Bi-Curious” which makes me laugh.

I don’t mention it because it hardly matters at this point. I’ve been happily married to a wonderful man for… wow, it will be 14 years in November, and even if I wanted to experiment, it’s a world I really don’t care to explore. Plus I never wanted to mention it to my parents and deal with the whole “Well why didn’t you marry a woman then?”

But I remember several distinct crushes on girls/women over the years: Amy in 3rd grade, Andrea at 13 years old, Felicia after high school, and far more recently a coworker who shall remain nameless (I definitely told her once though.)

And I’m a crush kind of guy. How does Big Pun say it? “I’m not a player I just crush a lot.” I’m a hopeless romantic, and when I fantasize about people I’m attracted to, it’s usually more about kissing and holding than actual sex. I’ve always been like this, and probably always will. Shit, I have one on someone right now. My husband tends to laugh at me when I go through these, unless I get depressed about it then he’s just annoyed and hoping it will be over soon. Anyway, this one in 3rd grade was my first.

Amy was a girl in the gifted program with me. I tested into that program every single year of school (in high school they called it the “Honors” program,) but I was definitely on the lower rung of the IQ scale in that program. Everyone was always smarter than me, and it was tough to keep up.

She was one of the smartest in my class. I always asked her for help because I knew she’d always have the right answer. I remember always looking at her wide-eyed with admiration. But not just because she was smart. She had light blue eyes, strawberry blond hair, a fully round face with few hard edges, and her skin was always tan-colored even though it was just her natural tone. I thought she was so pretty.

I was raised on radio, and whenever I could, whether at home on the stereo in the living room or making my parents turn it to my favorite station in the car, I would tune in. There was this station in St. Louis called KHTR 103.3, that played all of the top 80s hits. (Is that station still around??) I was addicted to that station.

“Something About You” would come on and I began to associate this song with Amy. Every time I hear this song, even today, I always recall her. It’s important to note here that as a kid I only barely had a grasp on the meaning of the lyrics of these songs, if I even knew the right lyrics at all. The line in this song that says “fragile but free” I always sang as “Frank Jabba free.” (I was a Star Wars kid too.) What the hell did I think that even meant??

But my experience with music has always about connecting to the feeling and emotion of the music more than the lyrics. Yes, I did understand the chorus of “There must be something about you, baby, so right…” However, it was the big swelling synths, one could say a signature of 80s pop, that felt like my own heart swelling when I thought of her. And the pre-chorus/bridge/whatever when he goes into singing falsetto, I couldn’t tell you why it invoked so much emotion for me, but it made me feel like I was floating. And even just the harmonic “Oooohs” at the beginning and end of the track had this tone of slight melancholy of not having her but the hopefulness that I could.

My favorite memory of this crush was the time I tried really hard to impress her, and failed miserably. As a class the teacher took us across the street to this big playground to play, and there was this big swing set. When I say big I mean BIG; it wasn’t the standard 7 or 8 feet tall, it had to be more like 12 feet. And of course from my small 3rd-grader body’s perspective, it seemed like 20 feet.

Some saw danger but I saw opportunity. Amy was nearby and I had been wanting to impress her so bad. I asked another boy in class to help me, to give me a proper push so I could swing as high as I could go. I finally swung hard enough to get the myself almost level to the top bar. I yelled “HEY AMY, WATCH THIS!”

I jumped from the apex of my swing, expecting that I would stick the landing like Mary Lou Retton or something. I absolutely did not. I landed flat on my face and stomach, knocking the wind out of me hard. Amy and a couple other classmates ran over to see if I was okay. Physically, once I caught my breath I was fine. But I wanted to leave my face buried in the ground forever out of embarrassment.

I wonder where she is now, what her life turned out to be like. I doubt she remembers me at all. But I’ll always remember her fondly, and laugh at my abject failure at the playground that day.

[youtu.be/OAwaNWGLM…

Janet taught me how to count to 5! Kidding, obviously. Oddly enough though, my first experience with this album was math-related.

I was sitting in my 7th Grade Pre-Algebra class, and that particular day Mr. McKinley gave us a day without lessons so we could spend the period studying. He hit play on this boombox on his desk, and what I heard blew my fucking MIND. “Mr. McKinley! What are you playing?”

“Janet Jackson’s new album Rhythm Nation.” I thought he actually said “Rhythmnasia,” like Disney’s Fantasia or something. Didn’t matter. I had already loved and danced my little butt off to her previous album Control, but I knew right away that this was going to be something legendary. If Control put Janet on the map, Rhythm Nation 1814 was going to cement her as a pivotal shift in pop music.

Most gay men I know have their go-to “diva.” Beyoncé, Carly Rae, Gaga, Chappell etc. Men my age would typically say that Madonna filled this role for them, and don’t get me wrong I’ll be writing about Madonna too, but for me, nothing beat Janet. Her album releases tended to be exactly what my younger self needed to hear. Control came out when I was 9 years old, and all I wanted to do back then was dance. Rhythm Nation when I was 12, and it inspired me to do and be something better for the world. Janet came out when I was 16, puberty in full swing, and her sexual awakening on that album made me start to feel like my own desires were natural. And then Velvet Rope, when I was 20, freshly out of the closet. Her outspokenness about the queer community and making musical expressions that fought against the discrimination of people like me… life saving at the time.

My foolish younger self actually thought “Rhythm Nation” was a real army, no joke. I so hoped that one day I could be recruited, get my own chrome “1814” badge, and become a warrior to fight social injustice. (This would happen to me later on as well with the KLF; I definitely hoped I could take “The Last Train To Trancentral” and join the “Justified Ancients of MuMu” in “MuMu Land.")

I even mailed the fan club address in the liner notes in the back of the cassette. I received a postcard back in the mail that was “signed” by Janet. I was so excited and I brought it on the school bus, exclaiming “JANET WROTE ME BACK!!” This stupid girl Tara had to rain on my parade, as she laughed and said “She didn’t write you! She sent you the back of a cereal box!” Ooh I was mad at her for a long time after that.

ANYWAY, let me break it down for you:

“Interlude: Pledge / Rhythm Nation”

First off, I love the interludes between songs. But this opening interlude, where you hear multiple “soldiers” pledging to fight injustice, it STILL gives me goosebumps. Then she counts down “5, 4, 3, 2, 1” and the title track starts and it goes HARD. She knew what she was doing. If any song ever roused me to be part of a cause, this was the one.

Also this whole album is such a flex for Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The instrumentation, beats and even the minimal yet clever use of samples took elements of pop, jazz, hip-hop and rock and made them work so seamlessly.

And then when she shout-sings “Sing it people! Sing it children! Sing it if you want a better way of life!!” Gives me chills. She wasn’t fucking around on this one.

I do have a confession to make; I loved to dance to these songs but I was far too lazy to actually learn the actual choreographed moves from her videos. I just learned like the first couple of shoulder taps and bullshitted my way through the rest of it. I honestly wish I had taken more time to learn those. Especially later on, with that iconic dance she does in the “If” video.

“Interlude: T.V. / State Of The World”

Again, the impressionable teenager I was hearing this, I wanted to HELP. And so much of what she was talking about back then I just barely understood. Like I thought I understood racism back then, but I know now I was WAY off. And the “drugs and crime” part I knew very little about at all. Still, it inspired me to try to be a better person.

“The Knowledge”

Now this track in particular, I’d say is one of Janet’s top-tier up-tempo songs, for me at least. Even more than “Rhythm Nation” and “Miss You Much,” this song has something special about it that I can’t really put my finger on. The opening harmonies, crazy good dance beat, driving bass line, the broken glass sounds, the spoken instead of sung lyrics… yeah it sounds a little dated these days but I still go back and listen to this track more than most of these. And again, it was inspiring me. “Prejudice… NO!”

Incidentally, I also loved the Rhythm Nation 1814 film companion to the album, and “The Knowledge” sequence was my favorite. Just her, by herself on a roof, dancing and breaking glass. Of course I loved the Tina Landon choreography in the other videos, but something about Janet dancing by herself is so intriguing. See also: “The Pleasure Principle” video.

“Miss You Much”

“Get the point? Good, let’s dance!” Ohhh man you guys, I was OBSESSED with this one back then. This song was so fun to dance to. I had to dance every single time it came on. Shit, I still do it sometimes, if I hear it in the grocery store or something, wiggling my shoulder and ass in the frozen aisle, you know?

And that video, damn. I mean, first of all I loved the whole look and theme of all of the videos from the first half of the album. What do you call that, art deco crossed with retro-futurism? Like that cool-ass loft with the pool table and clean decorative lines that looked so good in black and white, but also a big block of TV screens in the background showing static. I mean the detail of this set, even the diagonal diamonds of the coat hook she puts her jacket on, the large opaque white windows covering the whole set, the pool table… and so on.

Then she breaks into this amazingly slick choreographed dance number just to tell her friends about her being in love. Tina Landon, a GODDESS of choreography, truly. I love that she slowly walks down the stairs and as she comes into proximity of any of her friends they get up and dance with her. And dude flipping the pool stick, so COOL.

I also need to talk about the trend of these female pop artists having visibly effeminate and presumably gay male backup dancers. It would be a LONG time before I rid myself of internalized homophobia, so in my youth it was hard not to feel a tiny bit of disgust for men who presented that way. However, it also started to plant the seed in my brain that my favorite artists were embracing these men and giving them visibility, and that would eventually develop into a love and appreciation for those kind of men.

And of course, I couldn’t talk about this video without mentioning the legendary chair dance sequence that only existed on the companion film. The studio album cut and the main video ended with her saying “That’s the end?”

But in the film, she answers her own question with “NO!” and does this AMAZING choreographed chair dance with two of the dancers. No lie, my dad had this hat that was very similar to hers that sat in the closet in a box and never got worn. He said I could have it, and you know my gay ass was trying to do that chair dance in the basement next to the pool table. (You can find this clip on YouTube, btw, just search “Miss You Much Chair Dance.")

“Love Will Never Do Without You”

I’m not going to say a whole lot about this song, although it’s arguably one of her best from that era. Back in the day though, I didn’t like this song. I didn’t like the video either. I tended to skip it. These days, I always love to hear it. And it’s one of the songs she does her signature fake laugh on, which I’m always a fan of. (Also worth noting Djimon Hounsou’s fine ass being in the video, oof. And Antonio Sabato Jr, but he’s just okay.)

“Livin' In A World (They Didn’t Make)”

I’m going to gloss over this one too. I always skipped this as well, to the point that as I’m listening to this album again while I’m writing, I forgot what this song even sounded like. Thing is, it’s a really good song, but it ends with the sounds of a school shooting, guns and kids screaming. It was hard to hear.

I’ll go to bat for this song though, it’s really well written and has a great melody. And it fit her theme of fighting against injustice. Also, it’s crazy that a song that speaks out against school shootings is 2 billion times more relevant NOW then it was back then in 1989. It’s like she was predicting the future a bit.

“Alright”

It’s so wild that there’s 3 versions of this song and they’re all equally cool. The studio cut, which is the shortest of the three, yet perfect on its own. Then there’s TWO video versions, one featuring the legendary Cab Calloway, and the second one with everything from the first video but ALSO a rap cameo by Heavy D. I always loved when there were different mixes released for videos (see also Missy Elliot.)

If “Miss You Much” was my favorite song from this album to dance to, “Alright” was a close second. The snare hits, the horn blasts, background shouts and vocal harmonies all came together for a perfect groove. And one thing I want to mention about the video versions is there’s an extra interlude of horn blasts near the end that I fucking LOVE. If you watch the regular video version on YouTube (the one sans Heavy D) you can hear those horn blasts start at the 5:30 mark. I was thinking the other day if there was any way for me to pinpoint where in my childhood my deep love for jazz came from, in part I could honestly give a lot of credit to Janet backed by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.

I also love how the video has a very similar aesthetic to the “When I Think Of You” video.

“Escapade / Interlude: No Acid / Black Cat”

My least favorite section of the album. “Escapade” is just okay. And I hate “Black Cat.” It doesn’t fit the album at all, and it just sounded like she was trying to do the same thing Michael did with “Beat It” and “Dirty Diana” but it wasn’t executed as well. I DO love the interlude though, always makes me laugh. You hear broken glass, then “Ain’t no acid in this house,” then a panther roaring before jumping into “Black Cat.”

Like, what was she doing? Breaking and entering into someone’s house to make sure they didn’t have any LSD?? That’s kinda fucked, Janet. I also kind of wondered if it was a backhanded nod to “Acid House,” as the genre had gained popularity a couple of years before.

And I would always do a terrible impression of the panther roar just saying “WOW WOW WOWWW!” Ridiculous.

“Lonely / Come Back To Me / Someday Is Tonight”

As an adult, this is definitely my favorite section. I loved it back then too, although it was bringing to the surface some feelings of sex and romance that in early puberty I really didn’t know what to do with.

She had a thing for having a block of ballads near the end of her albums. On Control, it was “Let’s Wait Awhile / Funny How Time Flies.” On Janet, there’s “Where Are You Now? / The Body That Loves You / Any Time, Any Place” Those are all great tracks, going from emotional to sensual and back again.

I love the dreamy, airy atmosphere of “Lonely.” It almost sounds strictly platonic, but it’s clear she’s singing to a lover. I also love the sexy way she speaks some of the lyrics in Spanish. And the acoustic guitar is a perfect fit for this song.

“Someday Is Tonight” is basically a direct callback to Control’s “Let’s Wait Awhile.” She speaks softly in the intro “Remember? When I said someday we’d be together? Well, someday is tonight.” Ooooh that shit is good. I love when an artist does a callback to a song on a previous album, for one. But also it just begins the song by releasing an implied tension that she’s been waiting years to relieve.

Back then this song made me feel kind of weird and funny in a way I didn’t really understand. It ramped up romantic feelings inside me of the crushes I had on the jock boys in middle school: wearing the Umbro soccer shorts, spiky gelled hair, and constantly adjusting their junk with their hand. I would lay in bed, pretending they were laying on the pillow next to me, and I was softly singing to and kissing them. I laugh at this but I mean I kind of always do that when I have a crush to this day.

And it’s totally epic that she had Herb Alpert playing a muted trumpet solo throughout the outro. There’s never enough muted trumpet in the world of pop music. Shit, not enough jazzy horns in general. The one recent exception I can think of being Victoria Monet. Her music is so good I barely even consider her pop.

But I’m going to end this entry talking about “Come Back To Me.” EASILY one of her best songs of all time, if not the best. During that younger era, it really spoke to and amplified this feeling of longing for something that I couldn’t have. And that feeling is at the core of any person who still hasn’t come out of the closet yet. That sucked. It always kept me sad while I saw straight people dating and in love all around me.

And although as an adult now I’m happily married and feel no deficiency of love in my life, this song still hits a nerve that makes it hard not to tear up.

First it opens with her vocal harmonies just humming the intro, and the melody alone indicates a melancholy that’s not quite abject sadness but really sets the tone. And as harmonies go, this song has some of the best I’ve ever heard. I’m not trying to brag, but I’m really good at picking out harmonies by ear and being able to sing them correctly. But this song? NO WAY. I’ve tried and tried again and I still can’t suss out the right notes. Yet it sounds so flawless.

Also the airy atmosphere of the song is created by the string instrumentation and the well placed acoustic guitar, even though some of the drum sounds are similar enough to remain thematic to the rest of the album. Those latter drums could potentially make the song sound dated, but this is the only song on this album I’d say with absolute certainty DOESN’T sound dated. Songs like this are timeless, and that just about any human being on the planet can relate to.

BUT the part that really gets me? The part that makes me cry like a baby? It has to do with the structure of the song and the slightly surprising way it ends.

I may not explain this right, because I have a minimal understanding of music theory, and when I just looked up the chords, it seemed to say the opposite of what I thought it would. The song starts with the pre-chorus, which kind of has this feeling of hope, then sadness, then repeat one more time. (I wanted to say “major” and “minor” but apparently that is incorrect.) Then the verse sounds so pleasant, like uplifting and maybe things aren’t so bad, while still maintaining the forlorn quality of the song. Then pre-chorus again, fucking with my emotions, and the chorus is the same progression as the verse. It sounds hopeful, like she might really get her man back.

The way the song ends though… it kills me. You hear the pre-chorus one more time and it sounds like everything might be good. Even in the video during that last pre-chorus, you see her and her man smiling, embracing and walking happily together. She’s good right?

BUT HANG ON. That was all a dream. Because when that last pre-chorus ends, there’s no chorus after it to relieve the sadness. It just repeats that last chord until the end of the song and it’s SO FUCKING SAD. I’m fighting tears just typing about this. And the video too, you see her alone again and walking away, as she says “I don’t know what else to say… da da doo doo.” Like she’s completely defeated. If a song can touch my emotions that much, it’s a brilliant song.

While it’s clear that I don’t love every song on Rhythm Nation 1814, once I heard this as a kid Janet became an absolute favorite artist of mine for the rest of my life. 12-year-old and 48-year-old me both thank you for this album, Janet.

I promise you that in my case, this isn’t hyperbole. I didn’t realize it until fairly recently when I was diagnosed with PTSD that my life has basically been a string of jumping from one trauma to another. But the one constant that always guided me and kept me resilient was my love for music. A big part of this was my family, a lot of musicians and music lovers who cultivated my own interest in it since I was a toddler.

My mother was probably the biggest of these influences. She had a huge record and cassette collection, and once she realized my brother and I were latching on to current songs on the radio, she taught us how to build our collection as well.

I also have to give credit to a couple of family babysitters; teenagers that showed me how to dance, what the best radio station was, how to tape stuff off the radio, and so on.

And while the music helped me endure adulthood through some major situations that almost killed me, including a long fight with drug addiction, some abusive relationships and so on, I wanted this blog to focus mostly on my childhood. Religious trauma, some family trauma, and LOTS of bullying… most of that era for me was a lot of shame, self-loathing and feeling completely unworthy.

So this blog is dedicated to the music from my birth to high school graduation, 1977-1995. I’ll tell you my own story about these artists, songs and albums and how they gave me the strength to keep going. I know that sounds a bit bleak, but I promise there will be a lot of fun and crazy stories too.