This songs matters to me, because: (your explanation here)

It takes a very strong personality to be able to put yourself out there in a public forum. Thanks for sharing the story.

 

f_t --

I wish you nothing but peace.

 

"Wild Night" by Van Morrison. It brings back my best memory of reading this cool book as a 3rd grader in front of the old AM radio.

"Imagine" by Lennon. One of the best messages I have ever heard in a song. I wish he was still living.

 

Any of the "personal" threads on this site have been outstanding, including the meaningful sporting event threads, the stories about you and your old man bonding at a ball game. Or the first date hockey game that was better than a disaster. THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is what makes this thread so special — and why the voting for thread of the year might be awful easy come December.

Here's the thing about my next tune: As a rule I do not like country. It always came off too whiny and insincere for me. Of course, when all you hear at the senior (high school) graduation is Garth Brooks and Billy Ray Cyrus those thoughts are somewhat valid.

So I've spent the majority of my career in the American West and let some of the twang infiltrate my consciousness. My first job was in rural Nevada and "my" place was a bar and grill where boots and Wranglers were the rule. A five-spot in the juke box for all the non-country they had would effectively clear the place. From there I went to suburban Texas and successfully staved off the country bug again, but a co-worker introduced me to Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett over cases of Shiner Bock and I softened my stance somewhat.

The next gig was out in the sticks again and I loaded up the moving van and went. About four hours into the drive across a black landscape I left another radio station behind. I hit "seek" and it stopped on a country station. I hit "seek" a couple more times but it came back to this one damned station. The last time it hit the country station I heard these women singing and I listened for a bit:

"Wide open spaces/Room to make a few mistakes/New faces..."

Laugh all you want but that's what I've been about since graduating from college. Part of it is just a nomadic nature and part of it is still figuring out where I belong, but the Dixie Chicks' Wide Open Spaces speaks to me and sums up what drives me. It also nicely elucidates what I like about the West — there's a lot of room, a lot of sky. It's a sense of endless possibilities that I just can't get from the Midwest or East, the two places where I spent my first 22 years on this earth. The compass always is pointed West and if anyone ever asks why, I refer to the Chicks.

 

Good stuff, ServeItUp. Paraphrasing an old saying my grandfather used to say to me:

I'm an Easterner by birth, Westerner by choice.

And my song when I went west, young man, was ... "Going to California", Led Zeppelin.

Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,
Telling myself its not as hard, hard, hard as it seems.

Listened to that over and over again -- especially on nights when I was sleeping alone on an air mattress because I had sold all my furniture and filled up the back of my truck with whatever was left to be able to afford to move out here. I never regretted the move, and have never looked back, but there were times when it was a monumental struggle to make ends meet on my own.

Took me six months to be able to buy a used bed (mattress was new, at least), and almost a year to buy a small couch (I used to sit on a metal folding chair at my computer desk -- a do-it-yourself for $28 at Wal-Mart -- whenever I wanted to watch TV.)

But I persevered.

 

I've been reluctant to wade into the waters, since everything here is so eloquent and wonderful, but ServeItUp's post reminded me of something cheesy yet meaningful that I did on my first day away at college. I was a big Foreigner fan (no! really?) and once I got into the school of my choice I always said I'd play "Long Long Way From Home" before my first day.

Sure enough, I got up (on time, for one of the few times ever), showered and put Foreigner's first CD in my boom box. Yes. We had those back then.

It was a Monday
A day like any other day
I left a small town
For the apple in decay

It was my destiny
It's what we needed to do
They were telling me
I'm telling you

I was inside looking outside
The millions of faces
But still I'm alone
Waiting, hours of waiting
Paying a penance
I was longing for home

It wasn't entirely true: I wasn't "looking out for the two of us," as the song went. I wasn't intimidated by the hundreds of unfamiliar faces. And I wasn't longing for home at that point. I was energized--as energized as I'd ever been in my life to that point. I felt independent and on my own. In retrospect, of course, that wasn't true in the least. I was there because I was blessed with a set of parents who were footing the bill. But I wanted out of my small town and into something bigger and more challenging, and I knew this was the first step towards that goal. And I was right.

 

Here's another of my stories, although this one's about something markedly different. I'd like to warn people that some of what's going to be discussed here may not be for the faint of heart. If that scares you, feel free to skip this one.

Many years ago, I had surgery for something that I dare say is NSFW, so I will spare you the details. All I will say is that I didn't feel ready to get back to a normal routine until about a week or so later. About three years or so ago, I made an appointment with a specialist for an issue that in retrospect was really trivial, but it was one that affected my self esteem. Again, I won't give the details of that.

However, in the space of this appointment, I found out that I had a lump in my scrotal area. The left testicle was abnormally large and the doctor was worried. After a brief exam, he recommended I have it removed. As soon as I heard that, I immediately decided to seek a second opinion. The last thing I wanted to do was to get chopped up because one doctor was worried.

However, now *I* was worried. I went to a second doctor and he raised some possibilities that I hadn't considered or heard of. Just to play it safe, he had me go through an MRI. Feeling a little more at ease, I talked with my father, who's a retired RN. Hopefully, I'd get good news and the brief scare would be enough.

A few days later, however, this doctor called and told me the news I was hoping I'd never hear: He recommended I get the operation, explaining his concerns about the MRI results. I then did the one thing you should never do. I waited. I sat on it. Over the months that followed, I'd occasionally get a sudden, dull pain in that area but it always went away.

Then a few months after those doctor's appointments, I got my current job. That meant a few months without health insurance since COBRA was prohibitively expensive. That also meant this medical issue would go on the backburner. I had suddenly gone from being a low level grunt whose work was but one spoke in the wheel that was my company's business to being directly responsible for getting a weekly newspaper on the stands on time.

Finally, I got onto my company's health plan. Considering how badly my bosses scrimp on everything, I thought it was going to be an insurance plan in name only. Thus, I wasn't too optimistic in the event the proverbial shit it the fan. Although I was hoping that somehow, the issue I was facing would go away on its own.

All this while, I kept the extent of what I was facing away from all but perhaps one or two of my closest friends. Both of them were at least 1,000 miles away from me, so all they could do was provide sympathetic pairs of eyes. I didn't want to tell anyone, but I knew I had to tell someone. So those were the two people who knew.

On my way home from a party, the problem shoved its way out of hiding in the form of excruciating pain. It was so bad that I limped from the subway to my car. In retrospect, the very next thing I should have done was to drive myself to the hospital. However, I looked for and found pain medication and tried my damnest to hide the agony I felt, then the dull pain that followed it. I knew, though, that it was time to go through the last thing I wanted to do at that moment.

I made the appointment with the internal medicine doctor who said the same thing the other two doctors did, then referred me to a urologist. By now, I began to confide in my closest friends at work. The ad director offered to drive me to the hospital since I hadn't told my father yet. The production manager listened and offered sympathy. The work-related part I was dreading the most was telling my reporters. Both were 10 years my junior and one had just given his two week's notice a handful of days prior. Thus, I had one more worry in mind: How the hell would I get the paper out?

Both reporters turned out to be gold. The reporter who stayed told me that I couldn't worry about the unknown. It would later be the same thing a nurse at the hospital I was going to go to (which I didn't want to go to because I had bad experiences there) told me over the phone. The guy who was leaving asked me what my plans were to get the paper out and I told him I would try to get in and paginate. He then said, "I'll do it." I hesitated, only because I didn't think it was fair to put that on someone who was entering his last week on the job. However, he said something to me that I'll never forget and I had no answer or argument for -- "Don't feel like you have to be involved with every aspect of the newspaper." As soon as he said that, I thanked him and let him take over for me.

I would also tell my online friends about what I was going through. Many offered their prayers or their best wishes. Many offered their support. I did something that was foreign to me: I went extremely public with something that was bothering me to the core. I went public with my very basic life and death struggle. To this day, I don't know what came over me. I guess it was a sense that I needed the additional help. It could have been a sense of need to help someone else with what I was going through. But I would later get a message from one of my online friends who told me it meant a lot to her and our other friends that I opened up and I allowed them to rally around me.

I would later have the surgery and -- this was the biggest shock to me -- I was physically and emotionally ready to go back to work three days later. I stayed home an extra day as a show of confidence for the reporter, since he'd taken over for me once before and did a great job. That was in spite of my father's trying to get me to go back to work that Monday (I'd had surgery on Friday). I finally returned to the office on Tuesday because he was driving me even more nuts than I already am.

I would later find out I had testicular cancer. Oddly, I felt more fear before the diagnosis than I did when I actually found out. The urologist explained to me and my father what he'd found -- it basically was the best news I could have gotten other than "no cancer" because the version I had was the easiest to treat. He also said the markers after surgery appeared normal, which meant he didn't think the cancer spread beyond what he removed.

Next was a series of tests to determine how much it had advanced and how much of a fight I had on my hands. Twenty days after the surgery, I had a series of tests to go through, and since they were on a Thursday, I prepared for a whole weekend of uncertainty that nearly matched the fear I had before I knew I had cancer.

At 4:32 p.m. that Friday afternoon, the doctor called. He had more news for me: All the tests came back normal. That meant the cancer didn't spread beyond what got removed. That meant we'd go with single-dose chemotherapy just to make sure all the cancer cells were gone. After I got off the phone, I exulted, running through the office as if I'd won the lottery. In a larger sense, I had. After I told the ad director and production manager the good news, I called my father. Then I went to karaoke that night and sang the first song that came to mind: Celebrate by Three Dog Night. I was celebrating not just a great diagnosis. I was celebrating what I considered the day my life began again. These days, though, when I think about everything I've gone through, the Sheryl Crow song Live It Up is the song that plays in my head. Not just because she's a fellow cancer survivor. But to me, the chorus spoke directly to me: "Live it up like there's no time left/Just like there's no tomorrow/Live it up like there's no time left/There's no time to kill/Live it up like there's no time left/No time left to borrow/Why don't you try to get it right this time/Get it right this time."

I hope people get from this post the need to act quickly anytime cancer is involved. I was blessed. If anyone ever doubted the power of prayer, I'm living proof that it works.

 

Cancer is a scary opponent, but you fought it off courageously.

Terrific story. Thanks for telling it.

 

My breakup song: "King of Pain" by the Police

Unfortunately, it's been my breakup song for years. Most relationships end at some point, and some end badly. Mine blow up spectacularly.

Mine is a story of truth being stranger than fiction. Some doubt the details of my relationships, which include a schizophrenic, a butterflied penis, a fairy-tale romance turned scandal, and the one who confessed six weeks before our wedding that he was gay. Some doubt, but that doesn't make it less true.

As things got progressively worse, one after another, I began to feel like the universe was conspiring against me.

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

It was my destiny to be used and manipulated by those who claimed they loved me. I wanted the universe to end its reign of terror on my life, because during these years I gave up so much more than just relationships. Each time my love, and my life, would hit rock bottom, this song would go on repeat.

A few more years went by, and something important happened. I grew up. I learned to speak up. I learned what I wanted by realizing what I didn't want. I recognized that I have a hand in my destiny.

When I listen to this song now, I still feel the sting (no pun intended) of those bad situations. My mind still reels at the enormity of the bad luck, bad timing and cruelty. But I see it in hindsight, realizing that I made it through all that and I'm still here.

It has become a survivor song.

 

Just a bump up for the Greatest Thread Ever.

 

Ok, I'll help Fenian with his bump.

(P.S.: If you haven't shared yet, and you're timid about contributing to this thread, please don't be. And if you know someone on the board whose storytelling skills you admire, or just someone who loves music, reach out to them and encourage them to share a song and a memory.)

I've always loved songs that are named after places, even if those places are really about person or a feeling. Seems like half my favorite songs fit the description: Oh My Sweet Carolina by Ryan Adams. Via Chicago by Wilco. Jacksonville Skyline by Whiskeytown. If I Hurry I Can Still Make Cheyenne by George Strait. Alberta Bound by Gordon Lightfoot. Raining in Baltimore by Counting Crows. California Stars by Wilco (and Woody Guthrie). Grey In L.A. by Louden Wainwright. Ireland by Garth Brooks. London Calling by The Clash.

Etc, etc...

Through very little of my own doing, I got to cover my first Olympics at age 24. Another writer pulled out at the last minute, citing family concerns, and an editor, desperate for a replacement, looked at me an all my prep football experience and figured, what the hell?

"Do you have a passport?" he asked.

"I do."

"Start learning about figure skating," he said. "You're going to the Olympics."

Everyone in their career catches a break at some point. It might be a tiny crack that you dig your fingernail into and hold on for dear life; it might be a door you waltz through on your way to something bigger. For me, the Olympics wasn't just about a career opportunity; it allowed me to see about a girl.

For months, I'd harbored a silent and private crush on another reporter at my paper. She had blue eyes, freckles, sandy blond hair and a razor sharp wit I couldn't get out of my head. From the moment I met her, I'd been trying to manufacture excuses to bump into her in the newsroom, and brainstorming and cataloging funny anecdotes I hoped would impress her. Stuff I hoped would make her laugh. She was Eastern city girl, I was an unsophisticated Westerner; she seemed smart and confident and worldly in ways that I was not. As a lowly preps reporter, I couldn't ask her out. Her last boyfriend was just a few years older than me, and had already covered the White House. But as an "Olympics reporter" I was flush with confidence.

"Hey there Double Down," she said, running into me one afternoon in the office. "What's up?"

"GuesswhatI'mgoingtotheOlympics!" I blurted out. (So much for playing it cool.)

"Um, wow. That's great," she said. "When?"

"Like next week," I answered.

Both of us were quiet for what, to me, felt like hours.

"(Sophisticated Eastern City Girl), do you want to have a drink with me before I go?" I said, hopeful and eager. Perhaps too eager, I thought. Curses.

"Yeah, I'd like that," she said. "Call me."

A drink turned into two. The next night, we had pizza. She cancelled a date with another guy to hang out with me for a third straight evening. We told stories and shared memories for the rest of the week, uncertain what it all meant or where it was going, both of us exhausted from staying up so late but too excited to care. That Sunday, she dropped me off at the airport, gave me a kiss and said goodbye, said she'd see me in a month. During the day, I'd cover hockey, figure skating or downhill skiing, rubbing elbows with the likes of Wilbon, Reilly, Plaschke, Jenkins, Layden, Roberts, Brennan and countless others, and at night, I'd talk to her on the phone, confessing my dreams and aspirations, as well as my fear of failure. We played a game we dubbed "Personal History Jeopardy" where we plumbed one another's backstories by saying, "I'll take 'Broken Hearts' for 300." Or, "Give me, 'Relationship with your sister' for 200." The higher the point value, the more intense the story had to be.

Thousands of miles apart, we could not touch. Only talk.

The last week I was there, she sent me a CD. It showed up in a manila envelope leaned against my hotel room door. "Something to listen to for the trip home," her note said. There were tons of beautiful songs on it, most of which I'd never heard, and I can still hear them in my head as I type:

Tom Waits gravely classic, "I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You."; Bob Dylan growling "I Want You."; U2's "Beautiful Day. "Can't Hardly Wait" by The Replacements.

But the one that's always stuck with me the most was one I never would have cared about, never given a chance, had she not put it on the mix, right near the end.

I listened to that song on countless dark bus rides during that final week, wearing down three sets of batteries in my black Panasonic CD player. It's a song I always associate with sunsets and quiet, lonely rides with strangers in the snow. The piano always makes me smile. But it's one that also always makes me think about how my life was changing. I had been rattled that month; as a writer I had swung and missed a few times on a big stage, but I had done well too. I had survived. I had risen to the challenge, and now there would be more challenges, more opportunities ahead. I was headed home, not to the place where I'd grown up, but to a place that was quickly becoming a new concept of home. I was going back to see a woman I knew I was falling in love with, someone who would become my best friend, and someone who, in two short years, would agree to be my wife. (She's sitting next to me as I type this, reading a book in her slippers, oblivious.) Marriage is not easy, but she's still my best friend, and still remembers every nervous moment about our first date so she can someday tell our kids. And someday I'll probably tell them this story, and play them this song, because on some level, I think I understood that, right then, the next part of my life had just begun.

I've been thinking
I've been thinking I've been thinking too much
I just want to live now for a little while
And cast my dreams to the wind

Don't wanna wonder
Don't wanna wonder what it's all about
I'm just working for a living singing with my friends
As I cast my dreams to the wind

Maryland, I'm coming home
Never worry about what I did wrong

And that I'll never be what my daddy wanted me to be
And I'll never see what my mama's dreams were
But I will sing.

 

That's a beautiful story, DD. And on a less romantic note I'd like to add "Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young to the list. I can remember being in my Grade 8 English History class and my teacher telling us about Kent State (which was only 3 or 4 years in the past at the time). He then played "Ohio" for us and I think it was the first time I really got that music could be about something. I was one of the oldest kids of European immigrants so a lot of pop culture (other than television) I caught up with later than most.

I got my first radio in the early 70s and I can remember lying there listening to my first AM pop station and hearing "American Pie" and "Brand New Key". They became whole new songs when I understood what they were really about.