Song of Summertime

Woo hoo!  Daphne and Anali have posted their summertime songs, so I guess it is my turn!

They both chose songs that represent a specific summer for them.  I could do that and it would be 1997, Hanson's MMMBop, which has had more impact on my life than any other song period.  I'm saving that one in case I need to use it in a later post. :)

As it happens, I have an affinity for summer-themed songs.  My sister, Jess, and I had a cassette tape with a bunch of summer songs that we listened to frequently as kids.  I made an ultimate summer playlist a few years ago that has all of my favorite summertime songs on it:


School's Out - Alice Cooper
Summer in the City - Lovin' Spoonful
Hot Child in the City - Nick Gilder
Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams
Boys of Summer - Don Henley
Summergirls - LFO
Summer Breeze - Seals and Crofts
Summertime- Billie Holiday; Louis Armstrong
Summer Nights - Grease Soundtrack
In the Summertime - Mungo Jerry
Cruel Summer - Bananarama
Margaritaville - Jimmy Buffet
Put the Lime in the Coconut - Harry Nilsson
Summertime - DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince
Hot Fun in the Summertime - Sly and the Family Stone
Holiday - Madonna
Vacation - The Go-Go's
Summertime Blues - Eddie Cochran
Walking on Sunshine  - Katrina and the Waves

Choosing one is difficult, but I'm going to go with Katrina and the Waves' 1985 hit, Walking on Sunshine.  That song always reminds me of summertime and the wonderfully worry-free simplicity of childhood summers.

I had never seen this video before and I'm a bit depressed by how cold and depressing it is!  Where's the freaking sunshine?

Songs of my life

Jumping on the bandwagon with Daphne and Anali, I will be posting about songs that have impacted my life.  The first is a song from my childhood.  I come from a very musical family; the radio or MTV were often playing in the background in many of my early memories.  My mom sang along with radio continuously whenever we were in the car.  In fact, I didn't know there were grown-ups who didn't do that until we joined the neighborhood carpool and a neighbor boy asked why my mom was always singing.

The record that had the most impact on my childhood was Michael Jackson's Bad.  Released just after my 4th birthday in 1987, this was one of the first albums my family purchased on CD (though we probably bought it sometime in 1988).  Without a lot of choices to show off the amazing sound quality of this new-fangled technology, this got played often and loudly.  My younger sister, who was still learning to speak, called him "Uncle" Jackson.  My favorite song was the title track, Bad.  We loved to jump around the living room listening to it.  We loved "Uncle" Jackson so much that we rented Michael Jackson Moonwalker repeatedly from the video store rather than getting animated kids movies.

Without further ado, I give you Michael Jackson's Bad.