The Roundtable
What was your first favorite song?
I remember growing up and listening to Cheap Trick and Tiffany (my mom’s choice workout music). While musical tastes may change throughout your years, I don’t think you’ll ever forget your first favorite song. With that being said, it’s pretty creepy to picture most of the HEAVE staff dressed at Michael Jackson when they were tykes.
Ben Wadington - It depends on how you define "remember" and "like." As a toddler, I simply could not get enough of Janet & Judy's "93 Million Miles Away", a song about that "star that turns night into day." I still remember the lyrics: "It's an amazing phenomenon. Of course we're talking about the sun!" As much as I "liked" Janet & Judy at the time, I probably had no idea that what I was listening to was something called music and that there was/is a seemingly limitless number of genres, artists and groups that produced it.
A little older, I listened to Michael Jackson's Dangerous so many times the cassette tape went warped and awry. What with being a six year old I dressed up in a white t-shirt, black sweatpants and cut holes in a sock to make a glove, but does that mean I truly understood and appreciated the music? I'm not so sure.
Then came the mid-90s, when The Goo Goo Dolls' "Name", Live's "Lightning Crashes", Oasis' "Champagne Supernova" and The Smashing Pumpkins' "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" ruled the radio. It wasn't until this period that I began to understand and appreciate just how amazing an accomplishment good music actually is. I remember liking all of those songs, but the Pumpkins probably take the cake.
Amy Dittmeier - I’m rather proud of my answer to this question, although the circumstances on which I happened upon this song are nothing to be too proud of. Music has always been a big part in my household. I remember my mom turning on MTV while she cleaned the house and putting my brother and I in front of the television and telling us to watch Michael Jackson dance. For the most part, this was an amazing experience. I learned how to do the Jackson crotch grab, hat tip and all. I saw Alice get eaten up by a very deranged Tom Petty. And though the later music video terrified me to the point of hiding underneath my bed when it came on, I was exposed to some great nineties music through MTV.
But the first song I remember liking didn’t come from there. Once a commercial for raisins came on during an MTV marathon session with my brother. Now, as we all now, raisins are not very cool. I mean, they’re a tasty treat, but they’re nothing to blow a fuse over. But these commercials were awesome. They had these little claymation raisins who danced around and sang in a group aptly called the California Raisins. And the song they were singing was “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”. This song was not only perfect for the commercial, but also perfect for my childhood.
My mom didn’t know who sang the song, so when my dad came home from work I asked him who might sing this song. He went to his CD collection (remember those?) and pulled out Marvin Gaye’s Greatest Hits compilation. This was probably not the best idea on my father’s part, since the album also feature other Gaye hits like “Let’s Get it On” and “Sexual Healing”, but I guess I was too young to understand exactly what they were saying. All I know is I jammed out to Mr. Gaye for hours every day, making my stuffed animals and my little brother do the California Raisins dance along to that funky bass line. Hell, I even had a California Raisins doll. I think I won it at a fair or something. And even though I found out much later that Roger Troutman actually performs the version on the commercial, I’ll always thank those raisins for getting me into Marvin Gaye.
Mark Steffen - For some reason, I cannot remember anything before I was in fifth grade. I literally have NO memory before that first day of middle school. However, every time I hear those four chords at the beginning of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, I’m reminded of something deep inside of my chest and visceral.
I don’t know if it’s the angelic four chords at the beginning that every band since 1966 has been trying to replicate. Maybe it’s the perfected production that Brian Wilson brought to the table during the height of his drug binge. Of course, there’s always the possibility that it’s the simple, innocent lyrics that at once yearn to grow up while still maintaining that all the happy thoughts of what you’ll do in the future are making today hurt that much more.
Whatever it is, it still hits home runs. Brian Wilson (and I guess the rest of you Boys of the Beach), the most catchy, first song I ever remember enjoying goes out to you. It may “make it worse to talk about it” but, oh, if that song rang in my head at all times, maybe "then we’d be happy.”
Alyssa Vincent - I have always considered myself lucky when it came to the kind of music I listened to as a kid - my parents had some fantastic tastes. Whether it was dancing around with my sister to big band music in our living room after dinner, listening to The Supremes with my mom, or hearing all about The Beatles, I give my parents all the credit for introducing me to excellent music at a young age. Now, for some reason, even with all the stellar songs I heard growing up, the first song that I remember loving was by the one and only Rick Astley with "Never Gonna Give You Up". In a generation before getting "rickrolled" was a daily occurrence, I was crooning along with Rick, promising that I too, would never run around and desert him. To this day, I can't listen to this song without being transported back to my days of dancing around in footie pajamas before I went to bed. And really, any song that does that will always have a special place in my heart.
Ryan Peters - I'm going to assume that we're talking about music from legitimate artists, and excluding songs manufactured specifically for children (even though those Kidz Bop songs are fucking hardcore). The first song that I truly remember liking is "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen. When I was really young - say, five or six - my dad got a job driving a truck for an industrial waste management company. On Saturday mornings my dad would take me into the office with him to pick up supplies, and let me ride in the front seat of what was then, to me at least, the absolute biggest thing on the road. We did it every Saturday for quite some time, but the morning that stands out in particular is the one in which "Born to Run" came on the radio and my dad taught me all the words. We never had any other Bruce Springsteen in the house (because my dad was more of a Billy Joel kind of guy), but Bruce's most enduring track is not only the first song I remember liking, but also the first one that I could recite from memory.
Posted by Wes Soltis on Aug 22, 2008 @ 7:00 am
