To Change This Lonely Life: A Constant Experience

Hi friends.

I'm here today to talk about men.

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This may seem like a strange choice, given that I spent my weekend basking in the glory of Cher and Pat Benatar who just came through Detroit on Cher's Dressed to Kill tour. But when you see it in a certain way, the way in which I see it, this Cher/Pat Benatar experience was basically a worship at the altar of the modern feminine goddess. (I was thinking this even before Cher's final number, which saw her floating in a ball of white glitter over the audience and singing "I Hope You Find It".)

Much of my life is a study of the modern feminine. Simply because, that is what I am.

But clearly there is not one without the other and for as much as I love women I also love men, taken as a whole. Even though, taken as a whole, they make that hard on me.

Like any 26-year-old single girl, I've had my fair share of ups and downs in the dating world. But I don't think it's classy to talk about them in public detail, because I am a LADY DAMN IT. (I think I will ascend to a new level of ladyhood when I take Cher up on her recommendation of Saturday and start drinking Dr. Pepper mixed with Perrier. But, I might not quite be ready for that.)

In any case, this blog is about music.

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Pat Benatar was amazing. She opened with "Shadows of the Night" and it was a truly transcendent rock and roll moment, I felt like Lester Bangs. And I gained a new appreciation for that song and for Pat Benatar generally and for super-dramatic eighties love-rock that drips tortured emotion with every guitar line. The power ballad.

It gets very hard to date sometimes, much of the time, because it has so many more downs than ups. On Saturday Cher prefaced a certain song by saying that real "dyed-in-the-wool Cher fans" tended to love it, and I was nervous that I wouldn't know it or love it. But it turned out to be "Heart of Stone" which yes, is one of the more earnestly ridiculous of her songs and is definitely a song for people who have wayyyyyyy too many feelings on a regular basis which is just another way of saying "dyed-in-the-wool Cher fans". Don't you sometimes wish your heart was made of stone?

I sure as heck do. I can have a somewhat reserved manner in person, and certainly in writing, so I don't always know if people know that I am an intensely feeling girl. (Intensely feeling and intensely thinking, it's a strange life.) This blog probably helps people know that, which is part of why I write it.

It's been a rough time for my feelings recently, now that I know I am leaving Ann Arbor and moving to New York City. They're getting a real workout. And they weren't exactly hanging in a dusty closet before, if you catch my meaning. But I have enough life perspective to know that the pain of failed things fades away.

My first love/heartbreak left me two things: my appreciation for the duets of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, and a very soft spot for Foreigner. (It was also a good time for Cher in my life, the heartbreak part at least.)

So what I feel now when I listen to "Shadows of the Night" and remember Pat Benatar's thigh high plaid socks is actually not new, just the awakening of something a man gave me a long time ago.

Like I said, there's never one without the other.


The song: Foreigner, "I Want To Know What Love Is"; 1984

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

To All of the Wildest Times: Full Speed Ahead

Obligatory introductory statement: I am in the process of quitting my current life and moving to New York City to follow my dreams. It might just go at the top of every post because it colors every day of my life.

If you're a follower of this blog you know that I love old pop music.

But I also love new pop music, particularly when it's really good. I'd say that discovering a new pop act I really love is one of the best things that ever happens to me and here's why: people who are making great new pop music ALSO love old pop music.

So it's like all things coming together for me. The sounds of the past I love plus the sound of the current day which I also try to love plus the sound of the future which I am really trying to figure out. (And about which I alternately wildly between "terrified" and "exhilarated".)

And this band is just a dream come true. It's three sexy Jewish girls who can dance AND play the guitar, and who sound like everything good that came out between 1975 and 1995. AND their last name, and the name of the band, literally means LIFE.

The more I become interested in Culture the more I see how much Culture is driven by what the boys like. That's largely cool with me but I also want -- and this is all -- for there to be a place for what the girls like.

I can't speak for all the girls but I can speak for myself, so I can say: I LOVE THIS BAND. I also love Lena Dunham, and Mindy Kaling, and Cecily Strong. And Duchess Kate Middleton. And Best Coast, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Janelle Monae, Valerie June, Robyn, and Drake. I loved the movie Her and I love that the Muppets are coming back.

These are the things that look and sound like the future to me, and I just want to go toward the light.


The song: Haim, "If I Could Change Your Mind"; 2013

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com

His Heart In Every Line: Think About It

I find myself introspecting a LOT these days, partially because it's the beginning of what seems like could be the most profound spring in a long time and partially because I am preparing for a major life transition.

And these things are combining in a strange way, kicked off by my recent urge (which I now understand to be seasonal) to binge on the music of Sam Cooke. I didn't address it in that entry of a year ago because I think I wanted to keep it light, but Sam Cooke is a tragic figure. So handsome, dashing, debonair, and talented; killed too young in uncertain circumstances; a great and soulful singer who wrote one of the best opening lines in pop and protest music -- "I was born by the river in a little tent/and just like the river I've been running ever since".

Given that it is also Marvin Gaye's birthday, and just past the 30th anniversary of his own tragic death, I thought of him too.

And I thought of Jackie Wilson in whom I became interested recently, perhaps the most troubled of all, a person who could never find his feet in life.

These troubled people, musicians and artists, leave behind a record of themselves. But unlike their counterparts in the world of rock and roll, the songs they left behind don't necessarily tell the story of their difficult personal lives. Sam Cooke is remembered for "Cupid" and "Twistin' The Night Away", Jackie Wilson for "Higher and Higher", Marvin Gaye for "Let's Get It On".

It's not a bad thing per se. This is the nature of pop music. But the more I get to know and love pop music, and it's such a big thing that I'll be getting to know it and love it for the rest of my life, the sadder I feel about the immeasurable distance that can exist between a happy song and a happy singer.

It's just one of the saddest things. And I see the connection to my own life as I continue to balance my own struggles with mental health with the pursuit of successful creativity and happiness, and as I continue to know and love people who are doing the same.

You can't get bogged down in these thoughts; 95% of the time you have to dance to the music instead of thinking about it. But today, I want to grieve a moment for all the people who made great pop music and suffered about it. Not for their music, but for their lives.


The song: The Commodores, "Nightshift"; 1984

Yrs,
AW

inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com