One Song To Rule Them All (Part Deux)

Article 015.

I sincerely don’t remember how Foolish Heart by Steve Perry [https://youtu.be/S9iTAYYAybI?si=D3sIv2WVoxrHF3jK] became my and Howard’s most favorite song. But whenever we hear it, we will bust out hard. It’s inevitable. There had been countless moments where our lungs were about to explode because we sing this tune with so much gusto. The song did stay for awhile in my number one spot of all-time favorites until my current number one dethroned it in the mid-90s. Here's why.

It was a typical Wednesday night, drizzling a bit. I was in college, she was already working (and well-established I should say). We were at her place in the living room. The lights were out except for the one on the wall, providing enough luminance to her elaborate sound system below. Honestly, pretty impressive for a woman to own, I was kinda jealous. We sat on the middle of the floor and it was surprisingly cozy. Other than the sound of rain softly hitting the glass window and some crickets chirping, the evening was quiet. She drinks into her glass of wine while effortlessly looking so amazing in her silk pajamas. I came from class wearing just a tee and jeans clearly projecting that I'm so out of her league. She was in a good mood. The setting was almost a scene plucked out from some 80s rom-com flick. Very romantic. She goes closer to the Sony system and plugs in those oversized wired headphones (yes, wired). Placed a CD inside the player and then started swaying her head, slowly. She hums for a bit and starts singing. I was behind her just appreciating her movement. A few minutes into the song, she looks at me, singing without any sound, then smiles. God, I love this woman for this moment alone. She pauses and stops the song she was listening to. She said, “I want you to listen to a song that I just love sooooo much! I need to know what you think!”, talking a tad loud not hearing herself because of the noise-cancelling headset. She puts in a new CD and places the headphones on me. And so I listen. 

The intro didn’t immediately give me that feel that I’m gonna like it. I gave her that “it’s okay” hand gesture but read her lips saying, “Just stay with it!” The vocalist’s accent was deep European so I can’t fully understand the lyrics. But come chorus time, I just instantly fell in love with it. The melody started to make me nod my head and then left and right, gracefully. I listened almost to the very end before I pressed repeat. She flashed that delightful smile of hers again coz she knew I liked it. Liked it? I fuckin’ love it! Midway through the song she pulled the plug of the headphones out of the stereo, letting the sound of my newly anointed favorite tune blast throughout the room. Kudos to the equipment, it did deserving justice to the song. It felt like we were at a concert. The duo of Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt— Everything But The Girl with their absolutely mesmerizing 1986 hit— Cross My Heart [https://youtu.be/dKdzfaWYLbA?si=84KS2--OF-NU6zRS].

Is this the song that brings me the most memories? The truth is it doesn’t. It does bring back memories but only that moment when I was first introduced to it. I don’t think my girlfriend that time even dedicated that song to me. She just said she loved it. And later on when I fully understood the lyrics, she could never have dedicated it to me. She can’t, it was not appropriate to our story. Plus that is not the song I even remember her by but rather Steep by Lauren Christy [https://youtu.be/av3UAC_xpZs?si=u1VaFfFtkRL3jdu-], which I vividly recall is a song she dedicated to her ex. So no, even if Cross My Heart is in fact my primero uno song, it is not the song that brings me a thousand memories.

Just last Sunday I met with my closest pal Emong during my Aetna years back in the day. He and her wife Luz, who by the way he met at Aetna, flew in from New Jersey to LA in time to also meet another former co-worker Noreen (who also flew in but from Australia for a grand family reunion in South Carolina but had a two-day layover in LA). They all stayed, you guessed it, at another co-worker’s house in West Covina, Juliet’s. And together with Nola (hearing DJ Khaled from afar-- “Another one!”) and I, we all met up at Gerry’s Grill for a late lunch rendezvous. It was a great mini-reunion made up of extreme gossiping and uncontrollable laughter. We try to recall every bit of hilarious and controversial incident we can. We are in unison that we almost didn’t have a job back then, and that we were in a playground. Seriously, there was just too much fun going on. Although we never talked about it that day, could be because it was not the same group when the song became famous for us, that one song that brings me back to so many memorable moments was actually a part of the soundtrack from the movie Big Daddy. And every time that song plays, anything and everything Aetna just flashes in my mind. This was in the late 90s where such hits like No Scrubs by TLC [https://youtu.be/FrLequ6dUdM?si=bUsYYgrQKZ7waoCV], Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve [https://youtu.be/1lyu1KKwC74?si=i_Y9CL9n4otceGkL] and You Get What You Give by the New Radicals [https://youtu.be/DL7-CKirWZE?si=5ILNkakTPI17zu-Y] rule the airwaves (last one is on my Top 10 btw). It was a time of great music yet it is a song from 1977 that takes me back to the most fun memories I’ve had. Thanks to that movie scene that made the song very prominent— where Sonny (Adam Sandler) was making the moves at Layla (Joey Lauren Adams), the song lowly playing in the background and him cranking up the volume when the chorus hits. So typically late in the afternoon, when the office mood is a bit down, we will play the music and crank it up real quick Sandler-style to just bring the atmosphere back up. It also played a great theme song for those who were in inter-office relationships back then, and there were plenty. The song was also very danceable, has a great beat and overall a feel-good song, so it’s not a surprise it was a big hit to us or at least in the small circle of Aetna party-goers I know of.

If I Can’t Have You by Yvonne Elliman [https://youtu.be/7sxpwDLon-8?si=lPPyi8ddRRgijspm] — the one song that brings back a thousand memories for me. Now go listen to it…

 

L-R: Nola, Juliet, Luz, Emong, Noreen & Me