A year ago at this time, I was about to turn fifty nine. For the next birthday — the big SIX-O — I wanted a dance party, I told Russ. I’d make a playlist, and it’d tell the story of my life so far to commemorate a new decade. As summer became fall, I looked around our small town at a few possible venues where we might cut a rug. And in the early part of this year, when other same-age friends began sharing their big-birthday plans, my original idea lost steam. I no longer wanted a dance party, but I still wanted to tell my story through song.
As a card-carrying member of Generation X, I loved making a mixtape in my teens and well into my twenties. I’d spend hours in the upstairs den recording my favorite songs of the moment on a double cassette player. If only I had known then that those mixtapes would become time-capsule treasure troves for a much older me and urged my younger self not to throw them away.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve been making good on my promise to my future self, compiling a playlist that tells a piece of my story. Not autobiography but memoir-esque. It’s about a young family from Philadelphia that listened to all kinds of music and danced on the round rug in their living room. Sang out loud in the car to their favorites on WFIL even though nobody could really carry a tune. Loved a bar or bat mitzvah record hop. Any chance to move the hips and boogie. The playlist captures the music that young Kim listened to when her dad was alive and when he was not. It reflects disco, yacht rock before it was known as yacht rock, jazz, female vocalists, soul, early hip-hop, and funk. There are love songs, songs of positive vibrations, and songs that tell great stories. You will not find heavy metal here. (I had more than my fill when my youngest brother blasted Black Sabbath from the third floor, speakers perched in the open window.)
The full list (linked above) includes seventy-seven tracks. Not for any reason except that I couldn’t stop (and still feel like I’ve left out so much). The songs are not ranked, but their order parallels my own chronology. They were chosen with a story in mind; here are back stories for ten of those tracks.
“Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John: I was eight when this song came out and became an instant hit; it went straight to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It was all over the radio and became an unofficial anthem of Philly. I only learned recently that John and collaborator Bernie Taupin wrote the song for Billy Jean King, who was the lead coach for the Philadelphia Freedoms tennis team. It still makes me want to dance. Still feels like a love letter to my hometown.
“Free to Be … You and Me” by The New Seekers: The title track of my first album. I was seven. I’d belt the lyrics from the round rug in the living room and I remembered thinking there was a big wide world to discover and people and places to see. Meanwhile, abortion had just become law of the land.
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” performed by Judy Garland: I was Dorothy in the fourth-grade play. It was the first and only time I sang solo. Later that day, my parents told me that my great grandmother had just died. It was Dorothy’s first loss.
“Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie: Our babysitter Judy Caldwell came to stay with us for the weekend while our parents went away. I was in the front seat of her red Camaro, which had an eight-track player. She popped in Bowie’s “Diamond Dogs” and she knew most of the album by heart. I had no idea what “Hot damn I love you so” meant, but I loved this tune all the same.
“Apples Don’t Fall Far from the Tree” performed by Cher: This is such a weird song but it’s here because my dad went through a Cher phase. He liked to sing it when I’d do something that reminded him of my mom; of course I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Think” by Aretha Franklin: I could have picked a zillion other tunes from the Aretha well of greatness, but I chose this one because it’s tied to my memory of watching “The Blues Brothers” movie in 1980. Franklin played Mrs. Murphy who owned a soul food joint with her guitar-playing husband whom Jake and Elroy wanted to rejoin the band. I was thirteen then and remembered thinking this is a woman who won’t take shit from her man.
“Thirty Thousand Pounds of Bananas” by Harry Chapin: It’s important to note the live recording of this tune, which goes on for eleven minutes. But it’s the version that my dad loved and he would sing and laugh along to one of his favorite singer-songwriters. My dad was rattled by the news of Chapin’s fatal car accident, which happened only fifteen months before my dad’s fatal heart attack.
“All Night Long” by Lionel Richie: Senior prom at Lower Merion High School’s class of 1984. This was our theme song. I was the president of the prom committee.
“Say You Love Me” by Natalie Cole: In the late 90s, I became pals with jazz pianist Hilton Felton. He was a fixture at a Washington, D.C. seafood restaurant called Kinkeads, and I’d sit at the bar eating dinner while listening to him play. One night, he drove me home and he popped the new Natalie Cole album into the CD player. He sang alto, and I guess I was singing mezzo, parked outside my apartment, singing until the song was over. Hilton died in 2007, just a few weeks before Russ and I got married.
“The Pretender” by Jackson Browne: The summer I turned thirteen, my dad took me to a Jackson Browne show at the Mann Music Center. “The Pretender” album had been out for a few years, and I knew the words to most of the songs, but especially the title track. To this day, I can still belt it out.
Holler if you’ve got questions about why certain songs made the list, or if you’d like to share some of the songs that you would/might include if yours was the story to tell.
Hope you’re having a delicious summer.
xokod
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