Today, in honor of Jordin Sparks having to forever associate "This is My Now" with the night of her American Idol win, let’s share the ballads (inspirational and/or cheesy) that have marked moments in our lives (good and/or bad). As always, I offer a couple to get you thinking:
• Picture it: Syracuse. Fall of 1993. It’s my first night in a college dorm. My roommate and I discover we both liked Aladdin. We put on the soundtrack. And sing along to "A Whole New World." I can’t remember if it was the movie version or the Peabo Bryson/Regina Belle cut…Shudder. We’ll never know because I can’t go back there.
• Lee Ann Womack’s "I Hope You Dance." In 2000, I was stuck in a miserable job with an even more miserable commute home each night. This song was in radio rotation at the time — and I never changed the station. Also, a friend of mine — and it really was a friend — had just gone through a bad breakup and burst into tears when this song came on at a diner. To quote Truvy (Dolly Parton) from Steel Magnolias: "Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion."
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My mom was driving me one day when I was about ten and “Wind Beneath My Wings” was on the radio. We were singing this with all of our might when my mom finally noticed the flashing lights behind her. Apparently, the cop enjoyed my mother’s excuse that we were singing Bette Midler, because she let her off with a warning and started humming the tune as she walked away from our car.
“You’re The One That I Want” – Freshman Year in the dorms. Whenever there was a big group of us who didn’t want to go to a party, we would stay in and watch Grease and sing along to all of the songs.
Yes, at times using our hairbrushes as mics…
Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You” was everywhere in the Fall of 1992. I saw my then-fiance off to Japan. It ended shortly thereafter. It ending turned out to be a blessing in disguise, but I really cannot hear that song without being ill. That may or may not be because I associate it with that girl.
Hmm speaking of Disney. I use to loooove the Elton John song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from The Lion King. At 11 years old, that soundtrack was the first CD I ever bought. Actually I had the soundtrack on tape, but after my third copy broke I figured it was time for an upgrade! I still have the CD today.
The ‘I Will always Love You’ version by Whitney Houston is not the best.
The ‘I Will Always Love You’ version by Dolly Parton is the best one.
I love to hear Dolly sing it so softly! Whitney just screams at the top of her lungs. Annoying.
The Bangles’ “Eternal Flame” served as both my first slow dance ever (1990, sixth grade) and my wedding song (last year, different person, thankfully)
No, Yo, I totally agree with that. I think Whitney is pretty talented (and I think she will make a decent post-Bobby comeback), but I LOATHED her version of that song. She totally oversang it.
My song is All-4-One’s “So in Love”. (They were like the neutered version of Color Me Badd) It’s the Spring of 1993. I spent many weeks practicing to “So in Love” for the inevitable slow dance with a certain young nerd at the most sacred of events—the 8th grade dance. At the dance, I get up the nerve to ask him just as “So in Love” is beginning. He agreed even though he hated my guts. (Found out later he wasn’t into the black girls so much)
It was the most romantic moment of my life (in 1993).
::sigh::
“They were like the neutered version of Color Me Badd”
Jen, are you implying that CMB was something other than neutered? I feel gay just thinking about “I Adore Mi Amor”! LOL!!!
You want embarrasing confessional? I’ll give you bad:
Me and my pops having a bonding moment when I was 15. How did we find common ground? Not through rock or salsa, but through Chicago’s easy listening station. Amy Grant’s “baby baby” and Michael Bolton’s “Steel Bars” are frozen in time somewhere in my brain and I can still sing the lyrics to either song.
Now it’s time to hang my head in shame.
I have one more. Remember Gloria Estefan’s uplifting 1996 Olympics anthem, ‘Reach’? We, the graduating seniors in my high school choir, agreed it would be our senior song for the final concert. We would perform the song, holding candles that would be dramatically blown out at the end of the song. It seemed corny during rehearsals, but by the end of our final performance, everybody was audibly sobbing!!! I still can’t hear or think about that song without getting a little misty.
I hate to admit, but I listened to the song “More than Words” by Extreme over and over again so I could learn all of the words, and also the harmony part. I was in 8th grade and I’m pretty sure I didn’t get what the song meant but I sang my heart out anyway.
“Jen, are you implying that CMB was something other than neutered? I feel gay just thinking about “I Adore Mi Amor”! LOL!!!”
Ron, in 1991–to my 11 year old ears–”I Wanna S E X You Up” was like secretly flipping on Cinemax at 2 AM on a Saturday night…Naughty! For me CMB were a pack of lotharios, while All-4-One were a bunch of eunichs!
Try 50 crying soldiers wrapped arm-in-arm singing “It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday” after a Church service during boot camp in 1992 when Mariah hit with that song. How manly! LOL!!!
“Lady,” by Styx. Need I say more?
Anything by Whitney Houston circa the 80’s.
…remember when we held on in the rain, the nights we almost lost it, once again…
…where do broken hearts gooo, can they find their way home, back to the open arms of a love that’s waiting there!
…I finally took a moment and I’m realizing that, you’re not coming back and it finally hit me all at once!
-”Suddenly Seymour”…I busted out with it a few years ago for some friends at Barnes & Noble in downtown Seattle. People cheered at the inherent cheesiness of it all. It was a momemnt.
“Wannabe” from the Spice Girls – danced to this in the journalism room many times in high school when it came out. ugh, so shameful. fun song though…
there’s a few more though. can’t think of them at the moment.
At my high school graduation, my principal serenaded us with “What I Did For Love” from A Chorus Line. My mom took plenty of pictures of me sitting there with an “Are you freaking kidding me?” face on. I still shudder when I think about his rendition. He had a nice voice, but it was a downright creepy song choice.
My bad. I meant Boys II Men. I had Mariah’s “I’ll Be There” on the brain, because that’s what the choir sang that day.
“Suddenly Seymour”, Aramis? REALLY? Wow, glad to see I’m not the only one that has love for those that came from “da gutta”! HA!!!!
for me it’s bye bye, by jo dee messina. reminds me of graduating college and ending the four most fun consecutive years of my life.
and omg, i love that lee ann womack song.
Summer 1988… I’m 17 years old, just graduated from HS, and my boyfriend (and now husband) is going to be leaving at the end of the summer to go to college 350 miles away. I will only see him during summers and on breaks. This is before cell phones, and online chat. I have boxes and boxes of snail mail letters we wrote to each over those 4 years.
Any one of these songs can reduce me to tears each time I hear them, (especially the songs about being apart,)because they each bring back memories of the best summer of my teenage life. The one they make movies out of. These songs would be the soundtrack.
Aerosmith- Angel
Breathe- Hands To Heaven
Cheap Trick- The Flame
Richard Marx- Endless Summer Nights
Richard Marx- Hold On To The Night
Eric Carmen- Make Me Lose Control
Chris DeBurgh- The Lady In Red
I remember dancing to the song always and forever(I don’t remember who sang it. Help me out here?) at my sixth grade school dance with my boyfriend and I just took it so seriously and I remember thinking it was the best moment of my life and that was the best song we could dance to. Even though he was my 6th grade boyfriend and at school we were too shy to even talk or look at each other.
“All my Life” by KC and Jojo was THE ballad of my senior year and prom. You know what? I STILL love it. What can i say? It’s pretty…i’m gonna go listen to it RIGHT NOW.
When I first moved out to the Bay Area in 1997, I was staying with friends in Oakland while searching for an apartment in San Francisco. This was during the dot-com boom where apartments were at a 99% vacancy rate and where 60 people would show up to every open house with a portfolio and *expensive* gifts for the landlord. Jobless, punky and 22 I couldn’t stand a chance against the rich yuppies. But I was joyously in San Francisco and nothing could ruin my high and I would drive my pick-up over the Bay Bridge every day and see the sparkling bay and Marin headlands and feel completely alive. Unfortunately, the song always on the radio was Smashmouth’s Walking on the Sun and forever I will associate that song with newly found freedom and excitement.
how is a whole new world cheesy??? for a disney song, it’s wonderful!!! give aladdin a break, it always loses the limelight to lion king and the little mermaid, but aladdin is by far one of the best disney movies!! and a whole new world is JUST AS if not less cheesy than “can you feel the love tonight”. give me a break.
‘The Living Years’ by Mike + The Mechanics I think. This song came out just right after my Dad died and the line that always makes me cry ‘Wasn’t there that morning when my Father passed away…’ Tissue please.
my first “real” kiss, you know the one with tongue… junior high dance “Carrie” by Europe playing in the background, it’s stuck with me for nearly 20 years now.
“Hard To Say I’m Sorry”
Everybody needs a little time away
A holiday
From each ooooootherrrrrr!!!
Why it had to be playing right after we broke up I don’t know. It was freakin 1999!! Oh… OK, I was listening to light hits to TAKE MY MIND OFF YOU.
So I guess you were right. I AM RETARDED. Apparently. I mean… light hits, broken heart? Duhhhh. Recipe for disaster.
Anyway, we never got back together. It was no holiday. No picnic neither. And now I don’t miss you and I realize you s-s-suck.
Mariah singing “HERO” as my son graduated from the NYPD Police Academy. Still can’t hear it without filling up.