A few days ago I saw some girls who were obviously in the middle of a terribly important discussion. They were about fourteen, totally into their conversation except for the occasional necessity of reading a text message or replying to one. I couldn’t help but think about when I was their age, and really, I shudder a little bit when I remember the sheer awkwardness that was the hallmark of my early teenage years. The braces, the frizzy hair, the utter lack of confidence around those alien creatures called boys – just about all of it makes me cringe.
Of course, like so many teenage girls, I thought that I knew it all, thought that I was covered in coolness, but in retrospect I was completely naïve and overly earnest and annoyingly self-absorbed. Actually, unbeknownst to me, I was a nerdy version of a drama queen: even though I was well-aware of all the gossip and “scandal†at our junior high, I only stayed involved in that stuff for about five minutes before I retreated into my Piles Of Books. Honestly, who needed junior high drama when the sophisticated, self-assured girls in the Sweet Valley High novels were dealing with, like, MA-JOR stuff?
I mean, GAH!
I can’t tell you how many 1980-something nights I sat in my bedroom with my hair in sponge curlers, incessantly wiping my face with a cotton ball soaked in Sea Breeze, talking on my yellow Princess-style push-button phone while adjusting the rubber bands on my braces, putting one cassette after another into my jam box, thinking that clearly no one had ever understood The Plight Of The Teenage Heart better than Mr. Phil Collins. I mean, who doesn’t remember this classic?
“You called me from the room in your hotel
All full of romance for someone that you met
And telling me how sorry you were, leaving so soon
And that you miss me sometimes when you’re alone in your room
Do I feel lonely too?You have no right to ask me how I feel
You have no right to speak to me so kind
We can’t go on just holding on to time
Now that we’re living separate lives.”
Never you mind that I’d never had a boyfriend. I still knew deep in my heart of hearts the agony, the heart-wrenching grief of true love.
And I knew those things, of course, because of John Hughes movies.
In fact, reading those lyrics makes me want to watch “Night Tracks†on WTBS out of Atlanta and record all the best videos (Dexy’s Midnight Runners singing “Come On, Eileen,” anyone?) on a VCR with its remote attached by a wire.
While tinkering with MS-DOS until the amber letters on the monitor make my eyes cross.
While drinking Pepsi Free.
All I have time to comment on right now is the fact that although I always loved the song “Come On, Eileen,” it wasn’t until about three years ago that it dawned on me EXACTLY what that song was about.
Also, last week’s (or maybe two weeks ago) Entertainment Weekly are article about the 50 Greatest High School films ever. Worth checking out even though Sixteen Candles was on the low end of the list.
Yeah. I have no idea what it’s about.
Do I even want to know?
OH LORDY, do I need to change the song reference now?
(I’ve been a little paranoid about the blog over the last 24 hours, if you can’t tell). :-)
No, you don’t need to change it. It just further illustrates the adolescent ’80’s mindset, not realizing that “Come On Eileen” is totally about trying to get Eileen in bed. And not for sleepin’. Just like I didn’t realize, watching Grease, that Greased Lightning was not just about a car (!) and what “knocked up” meant. Until I rented it when I was in college. With my entire church group. Good times.
I thought that it was a right of passage to sit on the dining room table cross legged with a birthday cake in the middle and a cute boy sitting on the other side.
Ducky was always my favorite in Pretty in Pink, and I loved that one of the southern designing women played the freaky friend with crazy clothes.
I am all about John Hughes marathons, but Breakfast Club was a bit too much reality for me.
No, you do not need to change the blog reference; it is a wonderfully cool song that takes me back (and you too) to a very happy time. The song is basically a young boy pleading with a young girl (you can deduct from there):
“Come on, Eileen,
Oh, I swear (what he means)
At this moment, you mean everything
You in that dress,
my thoughts I confess
Which are dirty
Aah, come on Eileen”
I was so thick-headed that I didn’t know what the song “I Want Your Sex” by George Michael was about.
Yes that Phil song was a keeper….it’s bringing other tunes back to my mind…
“And I can’t fight this feeling anymore! I’ve forgotten what I started fighting for.”
“All I need..is just a little more time. To be sure. What I feel.”
“You should know. Everywhere I go. Always on my mind. In my heart. In my soul. Baby – you’re the meaning in my life. You’re the inspiration. You bring feeling to my life. You’re the inspiration.”
“Hold me now. It’s hard for me to say I’m sorry. I just want you to stay.”
Ah! I’m off to wipe on some blue eyeshadow and whip open my grade 8 diary. I wonder what ever happened to that Paul Shamchuck that sat in the 1st row of math class…
I was ADDICTED to Sweet Valley High. ;)
I am so there. Back in the 80’s. With my little pile of 45’s. Although I wasn’t so fortunate to have a phone in my room. So We had one in the hall with a really really really long cord that I could pull into my room with me.
We had a remote-on-a-wire too. It was so cool.
Yikes – do I feel old! I guess this is where the generation ‘gaps’. However I don’t think all that teenage angst changes from one generation to the next. I think even Jane Austen agonized over the possiblity of love.
You write such great stuff!!
Really the similarities continue to amaze me. Sweet Valley High, how could Jessica steal Todd from Liz? Real problems, indeed.
Also, I could name the boy that I cried over while listening to Phil belt out Separate Lives, but I won’t. :)
I’m so with you guys. And it was only hearing “Come on Eileen” on the radio a couple of weeks ago that I figured it out!! And “Greased Lightening” – puleeze, I still blush. Good times!
Thanks for clearing up the lyrics of that Phil Collins song “Separate Lives”. I won’t even say what I thought that second line said, what I’ve been singing for twenty-something years now. Oh, well. And I LOVE “Come On, Aileen”!!!! But I didn’t realize what it was about either. We made it through adolescence with most of our innocence intact – hopefully our kids will, too!!
Come on Eileen! I haven’t heard that for, um, decades?
Oh goodness. That’s a really old song.
I was a total nerd in high school. My mom set me up on a prom date. It totally stunk and I should have gone with my girlfriends.
Oh my. Nothing like song lyrics to take you back. My favorite Phil song was Against All Odds. You know:
I wish I could just make you turn around, turn around and see me cry
There’s so much I need to say to you,
so many reasons why
You’re the only one who really knew me at all
So take a look at me now,
’cause there’s just an empty space…
And the song was so meaningful, because, well, he really was walking away, and I really did want to make him turn around and see me cry… Even though he was really just walking out of the cafeteria with…ugh…Kim. I mean, come on, she wasn’t any good for him. I really knew him.
Yes, everything in high school was so very life-or-death. Thus the need for all the italics and bold-ness.
Oh and Sea Breeze and Sweet Valley High. I was so there.
Oh, Sweet Valley High, now there’s a memory! And can I just say that I remember sitting on my friend’s bed in the middle of the night, crying over her break-up (not even my own) while listening to Bon Jovi?
Good times.
Not.
I’d not repeat those years again for any amount of money, ever!!
Ohhh. “Against All Odds”. Still sends me face down in the carpet. Drinkin’ Tickle Pink and Mad Dog 20/20 (not together, mind you). It’s miracle of God I survived at all.
“Pretty in Pink” with Andrew McCarthy’s beautiful blue eyes–that movie just has to be a classic!
Ahhh, and the burn of Sea Breeze just to confirm the feeling of really clean skin!
In junior high, high school, (okay & still today) I was a HUGE Amy Grant fan. My friends used to call me Amy Grant because I had “Big” naturally curly hair like hers, and also loved to sing (but without the recording contract:)! I remember the night at Contemporary Christian Music Roller Skate Night when I was making a request (of cutie Michael W. Smith songs, of course) when I actually read his dedications on the back of his album cover. I discovered that he was MARRIED! What a trajedy–I just knew that he had been waiting patiently for me to get my braces off and finish Algebra and then one day marry me! Oh well.
Kristi
NIGHT TRACKS!!!!!!! like oh mi GOD, i had completely forgotten night tracks. whoa
i think we are the exact same age but somehow i do not have the same memories as you do. i think i was woefully immature and nerdy in my braces and huge round glasses with the 2 inch thick glass. so immature that i did not sit around in my room listening to hip music. instead i was probably still reading nancy drew with my legs draped over the arm of a couch and spitting sunflower seed hulls into a cup while the “cool” kids played softball across the road on the baseball field.
Terry and I saw Phil in concert a couple of years ago. He is an outstanding performer. He sang all the “oldies” but goodies and I was in high school all over again. Of course, that means I had to go home and do a little making out and all. Hee Hee! =) (Yes, with T.)
I love the 80’s! I still listen to the 80’s channel on our TV ALL the time! And Phil Collins rocked…don’t you love the 80’s power ballads?!
That brought back great memories!!
Girl–no one can throw me back to the 80s better than you can. I saw the movie _Grease_ 22 times in the 3rd grade and never caught ANY of the innuendos. My husband (being raised in a GOOD Christian home) had not been allowed to see it as a child and so I was so excited to rent it for him sometime during our first year of marriage. I was soooo embarrassed to admit how many times I had seen that movie IN THE THEATER!!!! (We had a dollar theater in our town and Grease ran forever…)
OH sigh, am I the ONLY girl who misses the 80’s? Like wistfully, not just in jest?
I used to tape my favorite songs off of the radio- pitiful. And did you wear Love’s Baby Soft perfume?
Melanie – Mama wouldn’t let me wear Love’s Baby Soft because she has a thing about powdery smells (that’s an ENTIRELY different post) – but I used to eye it wistfully in Eckerd’s and Seventeen magazine, because clearly all the cool girls were wearing either that or Jean Nate’ after bath splash.
:-)
Oh, I loved Sweet Valley High books. Loved them! And I wore Love’s Baby Soft from time to time. :)
“incessantly wiping my face with a cotton ball soaked in Sea Breeze”
i know i’ve never commented here before, but this quote is like time travel for me! it took me back.
I am still on a quest to obtain all that music my mama would never let me buy, no matter how much I begged. Having toasted almond bars with my very best friend and wearing our esprit shirts (buttoned up ALL THE WAY to the neck, with our leggings and listening to tears for fears…
thanks for the memories, boomama
Class of ’82….I remember all these songs, movies and clothes, too. I wore the Love’s Baby Soft and the Jean Nate’ body splash…and Avon’s Sweet Honesty, too. I LOVE “Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners…Of course dexy’s are another questionable subject….
I saw a commercial the other day for something, I forget what, and “In A Big Country” was the music they used. Remember Journey’s “Faithfully”? And Rick Springfield’s “You Better Love Somebody”?…..
“You better love somebody,
It’s late,
You better love somebody,
Don’t hesitate….”
It was a good decade for music, but I wouldn’t go back through the emotional angst of growing up again for any amount to money. No ma’am, no way.
I still love and listen to 80’s music. Some of the best music ever, in my opinion. :-)
My hubby and I just watched “Pretty In Pink” this weekend and oh my, did it bring back memories…the music, the clothes! It seems like forever-ago. : )
tooo good – that was brilliant. my 15 year reunion is coming up next week. it is the first one our class will have. i can’t decide if i am looking forward to it or not.
I would not have been able to pull up the Sea Breeze memory, but I was so there, too!
And my Phil Collins memory (how is it that we all have one), is that In the Air Tonight was the song that I would play on my stereo when my mom was just bugging me! I could put on those headphones (the big old timey radio station kind), and turn up the bass, and just feel it as I air drummed and thought about how unfair my mom was.
My babysitter was wearing Vans this week. . . . I’ll let you know if she starts sporting the parachute pants, which were mostly favored by boys, but my sister did sport a pair.
Rick Springfield…my first concert (aside from the Sonny and Cher concert that my parents dragged me to as a pre-schooler, but that’s a whole different damage report)!
Loved Love’s Baby Soft.
Also, Janice mentioned her 15-year high school reunion next week. I’m just sayin’ that Boo may or may not be staring her 20-year reunion right in the face?!?
Or it makes me want to watch “Better Off Dead” while using call-waiting to talk to TWO friends at the same time and drinking Coke Classic and munching on Doritos.
Yeah, those were the days.
And the Phil Collins song? One of my favorites songs ever. Love Marilyn Martin’s part in the song… So hopelessly painful and romantic, all wrapped up in a beautiful duet.
I was about to mention Avon’s Sweet Honesty, but someone else referenced it.
Oh, the memories…
I was one of the freaky 80’s dressers (although, in retrospect, we all were. But I was a freaky dresser in the 80’s), white lipstick, plum hair with an asymetrical cut… Boy, I thought I was too COOL, but I’d give anything to have a picture of me from high school where I looked like a normal teenage pretty girl…
Oh — About the jr. high thing — I dated a guy for like, 5 periods in 8th grade! LOL! My friends came running into homeroom asking if I thought Chris G. was cute. Well, dud!!?? Who didn’t. His friend had done the same thing to him. And *VOILA* – we were officially a couple. We walked around the playground awkwardly during recess.
But, alas, at the end of the day he gave me a note that we just could never make it work… what, with his baseball practice and all.
So that was the end of that…
*sigh* the memories…
Sorry, BooMama — didn’t mean to take over your comments board, but when I get going on about the 80’s — well, watch out! (Oh, and I hope I didn’t freak you out with the email I sent you… ;)
Karla – Looking Towards Heaven
You crack me up! I love these walks down memory lane. I am always nodding my head in agreement at your memories, and feeling transported to “back in the day”!
I have also become somewhat alarmed as I read these things because I wonder if I am, in fact, suffering from early Alzheimer’s?? How in the world do you remember these things in the tiniest detail??? I am in AWE! I don’t know how you do it, but my funny bone is glad you can!!
okay … the title of this post totally has me LOL!! Isn’t she …… pretty in pink?
Andie: You know your talking like that just because I’m going out with Blane
Duckie: His name is Blane? Oh! That’s a major appliance, that’s not a name!
LOL … I can still watch that movie over and over even though I know every lien … why is that?
I’ve found a great place to remember 80s tunes – on iTunes, go to essentials, then grooves, and then you can scroll through and find 80s mixes. So cool.
Also… http://www.kissthisguy.com is a great site about misheard lyrics. Absolutely hilarious! You can waste hours there.