Clock Radio Music

This morning on my commute to work, I listened to Yacht Rock - or, as I like to call it, "Clock Radio Music." Because it's the music I listened to in my room, on my clock radio, in the 70s and 80s. When I listen to Yacht Rock, I sing along in harmony because that's what I sang when I learned the songs - it's the only notes I know. I've always been a sucker for a descant.

When I was a kid we used to sing in the car - church songs, mostly, and songs we learned in school music class like Senor del Gato. The three of us kids would take turns picking a song then we'd all sing and dad would hum along a bass line. We literally did this every time the whole family was in the car together, no matter how far we were going. You got in, you picked a song, you started singing. The days before screens in minivans, before iPads.

We didn't listen to a lot of music at home but when we did it was usually classical, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, or kids records from Disney movies or Sesame Street. So once, in the car, I picked the song "Glory, Glory Hallelujah" (sic) because I guess in the 70s most kids knew the first verse and chorus of that song. Kinda like "My Country Tis of Thee." So we all start singing, and we get to the chorus and they all go, "Glor-ee Glory Hal-le-luuuu-..." and I break out the MoTab soprano descant: "GLOR--EE--GLOR--GLOR--EE-GOR!" and everyone just stops. Stops singing and looks at me like I was singing the wrong song. And I go, "WHAT? KEEP SINGING!"

I was seven.

So not only do I automatically sing harmony to the songs that I learned at age 12, I tend to sing the lyrics as I heard them at the time. Even though I know better now because sound systems are so vastly improved, and I can hear the actual words. "There's a warm wind blowing the stars around...and I'd really love to see you tonight..."

Some of the songs I know better than others because back in my 20s I worked at this corner bar that showed Memphis Tiger basketball games on the big screen and had live music on Saturday nights. Small neighborhood place. Like Cheers. The waitresses in their 30s now preferred lunch shifts because they'd gotten married and had kids. So younger waitresses like me and my roommate, Susan, got the weekend night shifts, when crowds of college-aged kids packed in to drink beer, do shots and sing along to the latest hot acoustic duo, playing (you guessed it) CSNY, America, James Taylor, the Eagles, some Fleetwood Mac, but also Tom Petty and the Indigo Girls' standards of the time.

I started going out with one of the guys. I say going out...what that meant in 1990 was that we hung out occasionally, usually at a bar, and had sex. Then he broke my heart because he was also "hanging out" with several other girls who had a thing for musicians. (Full disclaimer: He told me it would not be exclusive on the front end. I was 24 and figured I could change him or something IDK.) That's when I decided that Bonnie Raitt's I Can't Make You Love Me is the best, saddest, unrequited love song of all time - an opinion that still holds up. Then I started seeing a different guitar & microphone guy.

But Yacht Rock doesn't remind me of my musician phase so much as it takes me back to the time when I was a pre-teen junior-high-schooler. I was just beginning to shed the naivety of childhood and discover some self-awareness of who Kalisa was. Listening to Clock Radio Music puts me back in touch with her.

This is a Kalisa whose character has not yet been influenced by the girls who would become my best friends, or the guys I'd be in relationships with. Connections like those, in my developing years (let's say...age 12 to 30), ended up having a pretty big impact on who I became. The one who was laid back helped me learn to relax and enjoy life. The one who worked hard and strove to to get ahead influenced my own drive to succeed. Some who treated me poorly taught me to be feisty. The artistic and creative among them encouraged me to dream and create.

All these people that I've known and loved helped develop my character. But when I listen to Clock Radio Music, I feel pre-teen Kalisa - pure, authentic Kalisa. I feel her feelings. I hear her thoughts. I remember her.

She is my most true self. And we need to encourage our girls to stay tapped into that. Don't dismiss or betray her to try to fit in - and ESPECIALLY not to make boys like you. I bet pre-teen boys don't abandon their true selves to be more popular. I actually know they don't because every man I've ever known really is still thinking their same middle-schooler thoughts.

Oh, Taylor Swift writes hit songs about how poorly her exes behaved? In my day, when we a wrote song about our ex, we made them stand on the stage and sing it with us.

"I'll follow you down til the sound of my voice will haunt you. You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loved you"