Welcome to the . . .
This month’s Museum of Me exhibit is all about . . . our personal “soundtracks.” You know . . . those songs that play in the background of everything we do in our lives. Now, I share a lot of playlists here. And I name my knitting projects after songs. So you’ve likely gathered that . . . music – especially the music that plays in the background of my head – is important to me.
And it’s been that way from the beginning.
I was exposed to a lot of music early in my life. My parents liked listening to records on their living room stereo (which was an actual piece of furniture), and in the car (my dad “custom installed” an 8-track under the dash of the family car), and on the radio (on top of our refrigerator). It was . . . the music of their time . . . Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Barbara Streisand, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, even Johnny Cash (my dad was a big fan). They weren’t at all into rock-n-roll, though. No Elvis for them. No Motown. Certainly no Beatles (which my dad referred to as “ya-ya”).
Luckily . . . my sister and I were introduced to the “hot 100” by our babysitter, a neighborhood teenager named Donna. Any time she came over to watch us, she turned on the radio and played the latest hits! We loved it! Donna . . . changed our lives forever by tuning us in to all the popular music of the day. I saved my money and got an inexpensive transistor radio so I could listen myself. (It never worked all that well. . . ) And my dad gave me his old record player. It only played 45s, which you could stack up 8 at a time! (Kind of like a playlist . . . only not really.) I started asking for records for my birthday and for Christmas, and saving my pennies to buy them for myself.
I didn’t have a huge collection by any means, but by the time I was in 6th grade, it was fairly impressive for a kid my age. I had a little record case, and I kept all my records organized in there. (That photo above is a stock photo; it is not a photo of my personal record collection – which is long gone by now.) (Although I did have a couple of those titles in my collection.)
Let’s go back to the summer of 1970 . . . when I was 11 . . . and heading into 6th grade.
I was gangly and gawky and goofy and very much not cool at all. But I did love my music! So that summer, I probably entertained my neighborhood bestie (Wendy) in my room with my records playing on my record player while we thumbed through our collection of our movie-star magazines (Tiger Beat, anyone?), dreaming of “cute boys” and the fame and fortune we’d enjoy someday.
We’d have passed the time away playing our favorites . . .
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How about you? What music would be on YOUR childhood soundtrack?
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Thanks for visiting the Museum of Me. Watch for new exhibits . . . on the 2nd Friday of each month. If you’re a blogger and you’d like to create a Museum of Me along with me on your own blog, let me know. I’ll send you our “exhibit schedule” (a list of monthly prompts) and we can tell our stories together.
This is delightful, Kym! I don’t think I discovered any rock and roll until I began babysitting… the houses I babysat at had lots of fun music! And you childhood soundtrack… PERFECT!! XO
Bubblegum music!! I’m a bit older than you and that’s how we characterized some of the titles you selected.
I had many of these as 45s and might have worn out Crimson & Clover!
I was going to MARRY Mark Lindsey you know. Problem was ……………………he never asked. 🙁
I had a much older sister so …………Motown was big in my collection. The Beatles, of course.
When I got to high school my collection got a bit more ecclectic – The Kinks, The Who, Santana, Chicago, Arlo Guthrie (HOW did HE get in there? But, there he was. LOL)
Oh how I love your childhood soundtrack – I know ALL the songs!! In my youth (grade school into junior high), I mostly listened to classical which is what my parents played on their stereo (also a piece of furniture). Then my oldest brother (6 years older than me) listened to Dylan (Highway 65 Revisited) and another brother listened to Maryann Faithful. By the time I was starting high school (9th grade), I was listening to Cream, Janis Joplin, the Kinks, etc. I had a small transistor radio (tangerine in color) that I would tune to the Top 40 station in the morning before getting out of bed. So many memories. Fun post!!
You were quite the B. Sherman fan, yes? I do love all those songs but I might have been a bit too old for Tiger Beat (although I was only two years older than you).
THANK GOD FOR BABYSITTERS! Mine was Sandy, and she even took me to the movies to see HELP! (I was only in 2nd grade.)
Also thank goodness for aunts & uncles… from them I learned about The Beach Boys, The Supremes, Tom Jones, Cat Stevens!
When I was in that 11-12 age range, most of my friends were a couple of years older than me — some with older sisters, too — and I think that really helped expand my musical knowledge. We used to do air guitar performances of CCR songs in my friend LuAnn’s garage.
I think the music of my childhood was probably very different from my peers because I was listening to music that my dad liked, and my dad is from Detroit, so there was a fair amount of Motown. But we also listened to Crosby Stills & Nash, the Beatles, the Who, Simon and Garfunkel, etc. If the radio was on, it was likely to be on the “oldies” station (at the time, that meant ’60s and ’70s music; I am afraid to say that they now play stuff from the ’80s!). I don’t think I discovered contemporary music until I started going to summer camp regularly in middle school.
Every Saturday morning in my early teens I cleaned my room to Kasey Kasem’s Top 40. Those were the days. Your parents remind me of the parents in that fifties song “The Rock and Roll Waltz.” Then about 20 years ago I realized that we (my husband and I) were those parents! My age group straddled Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles, and the Eagles – quite a spread, maybe a little U2 and all of Elton John. Beyond that I am totally clueless.
Song was in 1961, not the 50’s. Listen to the original Annette Funicello version on You Tube. Has more charm.
Sorry, that song is all all over the place on YouTube. The real original was 1954 (too early for me) but really good, too.
I loved my parents music as a kid and still listen to some of their favorites like Ed Ames and Andy Williams. My dad also called rock ‘n roll ya-ya music although he loved Elvis’ album of hymns. Your childhood favorites playlist is awesome!
My childhood sound track was cowboy songs! Like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and themes to Rawhide and other cowboy TV shows. I wanted a horse!! (I had never been around a real horse, but that romantic ideal I couldn’t get out of my head!)
John Denver!!
Crimson and Clover – I haven’t thought of that song for quite awhile. I remember the music from about 9th grade on – the Beach Boys, the Monkeys, and Leslie Gore. As a child, my Mom listened to classical music and my Dad liked pop – Dinah Shore, Judy Garland, Andy Williams, Perry Como. And now you know how that i am old.
I didn’t listen to music at home. My dad played country and western and that was on in the house if anything. But at the city pool which my brothers and I spent every summer afternoon sometimes into the evenings they always had the pop station on, WLS I think. So when I hear songs from the late 1960-1970’s I’m suddenly in the changing room at the city pool. (You really couldn’t hear it very well at the poolside over voices of screaming kids.)
Band of Gold – that would have been near the top of my list too. I remember playing it over and over on my grandmothers front porch. I had a friend in her neighborhood and she had sooooo many records. Your playlist and mine would be pretty identical I think!