Lost Memories

I've been planning to write this well before Little Earl's '80's Tape piece, but it seems somewhat complimentary to his so now's a good time as any.

I don't know about you but occasionally there are bits of my memory that aren't perfect. I remember something slightly but not enough to recall the full memory. This usually crops up with old songs that I remember a line or two of. I might remember a phrase or a melody but don't have enough to go on to recall the full song or even enough to search Google for the lyrics. Recently, through luck and occasionally complete serendipity, I've completed these memories and now share them with you:

I have a foggy memory of a school dance. I think I was in middle school. There's a slow song playing and we're all awkwardly dancing like you do in middle school, technically you're touching a girl but you're standing as far apart as possible. The song has some lady singing some quiet ballad. But then I also remember some woman singing really vampy too, something like "you better hope and pray..." and that's all I can remember. Maybe these were two different songs, I can't remember.

I had this one line stuck in my head for many, many years, I could hear this lady singing it, but I couldn't remember anything further. Years ago I tried searching the internet but with no success. Then sometime in the last six months the next line jumped in my head, something like "waking in your own world". Googling this and BAM! there it is, in all it's glory, "Stay" by Shakespear's Sister (that's how you spell it, don't ask me). Wow, this brings me back to the early 90s. It's a silly little ballady pop song, but somewhere in my heart I have a place for it, perhaps due to my long search and years of not knowing just what the hell that damn song is called! Well, here it is folks:


Little known fact: apparently vampy girl was terribly drunk when her part was filmed since she had been waiting around all day with nothing to do while the rest of the video was being shot.

Now it's the mid-90s and I'm in the boys locker room in high school. There's a bunch of those Mexican gangsta looking kids and maybe some white boy wanna-be gangsta guys. They keeping singing some hip hop song about a hurricane. I remember hearing it on KMEL even (though why I would have been listening to KMEL is beyond me, maybe someone had a portable radio?). Somehow a part of the song gets lodged in my head, something like, "Hurricane, but you can call me something something". Dammit, what is it?? For years this bit of a line is stuck in my noggin, and I keep hoping that maybe in some best of the 90s retrospect on VH1 it will pop up, but alas, maybe it was all just a dream?

Then recently I'm reading some article on the AV Club. Someone in the comments mentioned a hurricane and some poster (God bless 'em) responds with "but you can call me slurricane!" THAT'S IT!! That's the next line! Googling quick I come upon this golden gem by The Click, and they're apparently from Vallejo. Ahhh, the high school locker room memories...



That "dah da da da da da da" is sure damn catchy.

My third and final memory goes back, way back (is this The Tree of Life?). I'm probably no more than 8 years old, maybe even younger. I'm with a friend, let's just call him Macklan, and there's a game we used to play a lot of on his dad's old Atari. It's like Space Invaders but not quite the same. I really don't remember a lick of info beyond that. Then I'm sitting here at my job, unboxing things related to the history of early computing, when I find a familiar looking box. A very familiar looking box. Wait, that picture, I... remember. The game: Demon Attack. Oh yeah, it's like Space Invaders BUT BETTER. Wow, this is something I thought I'd never ever find the true name of, and now the box is sitting right in front of me, complete with the cool looking alien spaceship and everything!



Trust me, this was pretty damn awesome back in the day.

And there you have it folks. I can now die having lived a happy, fulfilling life - one full of memories of wanna be space invaders, mid 90s hip-hop, and vampy space ballads.