Where Bloggers Live: I Got the Music In Me

Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, and more!

HELLO, MUSIC LOVERS! Well, I HOPE you’re music lovers, cuz that’s what this month’s theme is. Music. I would say “our favorite music,” but I suppose someone could be talking about their LEAST favorite music. I DO have a least favorite kind of music but I might just keep that to myself as I know it is a very popular genre and…yeah.

Moving on.

Music has been in and out of my life over the years. When it’s in, it’s IN, and I’m All The Music All the Time. But there have been periods that have just been silent. I’m not one for ambient sounds (unless it’s kids bouncing the basketball in the street or the ice cream truck going by). If I’m not sitting and watching tv, the tv is off. If I’m “musicking,” then it’s MY music, never the radio or generic playlist from wherever. And if it’s NOT “my music,” then I just want silence.

One thing has always been true of me and music. I generally do not like “popular” music. And usually, what I’m listening to, other people have never heard or heard of before. So. Music is mostly a private thing for me.

The first record I ever bought was Love is Blue by Paul Mauriat (I want to say “and his orchestra,” cuz that’s the vibe of the song, but) in 1969. I was already a music outcast at age 9.

I find I most enjoy what I haven’t heard before. Oldies? No thank you. With Very Few Exceptions, I just can’t maintain a fondness for songs I’ve been hearing for 30, 40, 50 years.

One of those exceptions would be MacArthur Park (Someone left the cake out in the rain, I don’t think that I can take it cuz it took so long to bake it and I’ll never have that recipe again) by Richard Harris. I can barely remember the year my child was born, but THAT I can conjure up in an instant. Sigh.

My first “musical group” (for lack of a better term) love was The Partridge Family…also at age 9. I think I must have graduated from kiddie records to the radio that year cuz that age is my first memory of music that wasn’t my parents (mostly Andy Williams, Henry Mancini and lots of Christmas records) or my sisters. She had a little box of 45s that included Peter, Paul & Mary’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” and I think Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind.”

I remember when Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run album came out in 1975 (I was 14). I was like…I’ve never heard anything like this before. THIS. IS AMAZING. And all my friends were like, “you’re a weirdo.” Ha ha. Then it got POPULAR, they all got on board, and I was done with it. Ha ha. That’s how it goes. I’m rarely in the “in crowd.” That’s okay. I’m my OWN In Crowd.

Which is why it’s SO SURPRISING to me that I am now a (you knew this was coming) BTS fan. BIG TIME fan. Like never before in my LIFE have I been a fan like this. Of ANYTHING. I don’t think I liked my HUSBAND this much. Just kidding (or am I?).

It’s sort of a two-bladed sword with them (is that the expression? it sounds weird), as they’re currently the most popular band in the world, which is not normally my jam, liking the thing All The Other People Like…HOWEVER, most people *I* know, have no awareness of their existence. So it’s like they’re wildly popular globally, but in my little world, they’re unknown. So it works for me.

Okay, Wait. I can’t hold it in anymore, I just have to get it out…

I’M GOING TO SEE BTS IN CALIFORNIA IN NOVEMBER!!!

Can’t get much more music-related than THAT. I JUST got tickets tonight. I was working on this post while I was in the waiting room and ticket queue, it was crazy, I thought everything was gone, MY COMPUTER SHUT ITSELF OFF TWICE WHILE I WAS IN THE TICKET ROOM…and then suddenly…I had VIP TICKETS!!! I don’t even know how that happened. But it did. And I’m going. I’m not RIGHT NEXT to the stage…and I didn’t get soundcheck (like I REALLY wanted) BUT. I’M GOING TO SEE BTS LIVE IN NOVEMBER!!!

Phew. Breathe, Bettye. Just breathe.

Okay, I just had to get that out. We will now return to our regularly scheduled post.

B R E A T H E

So. My “favorite” music at any point in time tends to be current(ish) music. But of course there are always exceptions. And those are what I’m going to share here with you…sort of my favorite songs from each decade since I’ve been alive (so as not to deluge you with only Korean music, which is the music love du jour).

I already shared with you my first favorite song when I was 9, Love is Blue…so that covers the 60s.

The 70s were my teen years and in my town and school, Southern Rock was The Thing. Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynrd, Marshall Tucker Band, The Outlaws. Wow. THAT brings back memories. Parties where my friends got drunk on Tequila Sunrises and Alabama Knockouts and threw up in the shrubs, swearing they’d never drink again, and because I didn’t drink then I was the Designated Hair Holder Backer. But that was NOT my music. I’m actually having a hard time remembering specific songs from that era…but I did love a song called Strawberry Letter #22, by The Brothers Johnson. It did get some airplay but it was not wildly popular. I also LOVED and played exactly 9,372,815 times, the soundtrack from the movie Johnathan Livingston Seagull, which was Neil Diamond. AND I can’t leave out Black Betty (bam a lam) by Ram Jam. Ha. That song was a hoot. I’m sure I liked it more cuz of the name, but still.

My Friends: “You’re SUCH a weirdo.”

The 80s was the advent of New Wave, which I really took to. I SO loved dancing during this era, I would go to clubs by myself just to dance. Alone. Cuz I loved the music So Much. Yaz, Human League, New Order. Forever Young by Alphaville is STILL one of my top favorite songs of all time. Hoping for the best but expecting the worst. Most “Bettye” lyric ever. To this day I quote that All. The. Time. Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles still makes me smile and chair dance. I danced and jumped rope to the soundtrack from Flashdance. A little mellower favorite was Alan Parsons Project. I think I played that til the cassette tape exploded in the car 🙂 I should look some of their songs up on Spotify.

The 90s were a less musical era for me. I was newly married, had a baby. I was BUSY. Too busy for music. I craved SILENCE more than music. I just looked at a list of hits from the 90s and was like yeah, nope, I don’t know most of that. I did love ah-ha. The Sun Always Shines on TV. I MUST get that on my Spotify playlist. Karma Police by Radiohead is still a top favorite of mine.

My music mojo started coming back in the 2000s. The Ace of Base album was my “splitting up with my husband” anthem. So POWERFUL. I would blast that and dance around the house. Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morissette, yeah, that was definitely my TAKING BACK MY LIFE, DAMMIT era.

I mellowed out by the early 2010s and fell in love with The Avett Brothers and all things indie/alt folk rock. I and Love and You by the Avett Brothers was my I’M GONNA MOVE TO BROOKLYN DAMMIT anthem.

I do love a good anthem.

That was a good music era for me. The 2000s was also when music streaming came into being (RIP Napster) and THAT was huge. For everybody, I guess…but REALLY for me as I was never a fan of “radio music.” I finally had access to non-mainstream music and this was groundbreaking for me.

This is getting SO long. I apologize. Let’s jump to the present – y’all know my deep and undying love for BTS, so I won’t go into that here (but did you know i’m going to their concert in November???). But I do have to say that I have really discovered a love for LOTS of Korean music – not just kpop. Ballads, rap…just like “regular songs.” I think there’s kind of something to be said for not understanding the lyrics. And there’s just something about the quality of their singing voices…it’s just so…pleasing. 

Current Favorites:

TXT OX1-Lovesong It sounds like falling in love. Joyfully. I know I’ve said this here before but it still hits me that way and I love it.

Coldplay x BTS I do really like their collaboration My Universe

BTS Film Out which is in Japanese and in a Japanese movie by the same name. The whole thing feels like a comforting hug to me.

Happiness by Ovan, which I’ve also shared here before, but it’s holding its spot. I love the way it sounds and the story is very touching.

And to pick a current anthem…it’s Post Malone‘s I’m Gonna Be. IT’S IN ENGLISH, GUYS!!!

I’m leaving out So Many Songs – but…this is already So Long.

Suffice it to say that Right Now, music is a big part of my life. It’s been a life-CHANGING part of my life. I’m grateful for music for so many reasons.

Make sure to check out the other ladies’ posts and hear their favorite tunes!

Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Em at Dust and Doghair