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My parents didn't listen to a lot of music when I was very small.
My mother was a big Celine Dion fan,* but that didn't really take hold until I was eight or so, when we were out of the city and had a house and a car and a load of other things we couldn't really afford. She owned a lot of Raffi tapes, also, but that was more for my sister and I than anything. And she knew a lot of British nursery rhymes, which she would sing to us and which taught us valuable lessons about the Grand Old Duke of York and similar. But she didn't like a lot of music, on the whole. Not really.
My dad wasn't a huge music lover either, but he had a few more CDs kicking around the place. I think that was more for the technology than anything- he liked the idea of music stored on shiny discs back when it was still a novelty. He now has an MP3 player and a BluRay collection for similar reasons. He owned CDs but he didn't often put them on; the one exception I remember was the Tracy Chapman album he owned, which he played over and over. It was a weird exception for him to make, really. My dad is a fairly classic racist homophobe who is absolutely terrified of women, and yet there he was, grooving to this black lesbian's smooth, sad voice. Maybe he just didn't know. Or maybe he was willing to make an exception. Whatever the reason, "Fast Car" was always on somewhere, the radio or our stereo.
I didn't know what the song meant when I was a kid, in the same way that I didn't know what "99 Red Balloons" meant when I was that age. I knew it sounded very pretty, and that the chorus made me do a little dance when I heard it, and that it came on whenever one of my mum's friends came over and took us for a drive. I knew the lady on the cover had very short hair, and that was interesting.** I knew that it was about cars and going places, and that was neat for a kid whose mother did not own a car and whose father would regularly disappear to a thousand different places in the world for work.
I liked that song, and then I forgot about it, and when I was thirteen I remembered it again and put it on a mix. And then I found out what it was really about.
My parents have a thing about moving. My mum moved away from England to get away from poverty and her family and her crazy ex-fiance. My dad moved away from Newfoundland to get away from bad memories. They moved to Newfoundland to get away from their marital problems, and then back down to Nova Scotia when that didn't work. I've inherited this approach to life- when things get bad I always start thinking about dropping out, running away, going somewhere new. Whatever shit may be waiting for you after you stop the car, at least it won't be the same shit you left behind.
It will be, of course, it always is, because fast cars don't mean much of anything, in the long run, but it's such a beautiful dream.
I can't hear "Fast Car" without getting a little teary, which is embarrassing, as it's been popping up more and more in my life lately. I remember listening to it when I was a kid and thinking about nothing but the buzz lines- fast car, driving, fly away. And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulders. That first chorus is so hopeful, still. And it all goes to shit by the last one- I'd always hoped for better- but there's always that idea that you can keep running away, always away, and eventually you'll get to a place where everything will be better. Take your fast car and keep on driving. Because if you do that long enough and far enough and fast enough the rest won't matter.
I had a feeling I could be someone.
Fuck, Tracy Chapman, you are so good.
* Other mum stuff my mother really likes: Anne Geddes, Michael Buble, plaques with inspirational sayings, potpourri, beige.
** Even at that age, androgyny was fascinating to me. See also: my later interest in post-surgery Michael Jackson.
no subject
on 2012-05-04 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-05-04 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-05-04 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-05-05 04:19 am (UTC)My parents listened to a LOT of music. They always had tapes in our car. Cat Stevens, The Soundtrack for "Jesus Christ Superstar" (Over easter my mom sat down with a glass of wine and sang every song straight through and provided DVD style commentary on how she found out about JCS when she was in Grade 9 and how much she loved it) A tape of random hits from Andrew Lloyd Weber Musicals, The Phil Collins Album with "In the Air Tonight" on it. Mom even had the 6 cassette's of her favorite songs that she taped off to play at their wedding because she thought Wedding DJ's always played shitty music and she wanted the music at her wedding reception to be fun and awesome.
A friend of mine started talking one day about how much he loves Phil Collins. Normally this guy is a too-cool-for-school rock/metal/indie musician. I looked at him and said "Your parents had the tape in your car when you were a kid, didn't they" and he yelled "YES! How did you know that?" but it's a weird thing, it doesn't matter how strange the music you hear when you're a kid is, you grow up and hear it and it has this weird nostalgia to it. It's kinda comforting.
no subject
on 2012-05-05 06:09 am (UTC)