Ten years ago today, on March 16, 2016, the following happened.
Thank goodness I write, because had I not written about this on March 16, 2016, the moment would have been lost to me forever.
Write, people! Hold onto the memories. Take a few moments every day to capture the precious moments of your life. They will be your most valuable possessions in the future.
Instead of forgetting this moment a decade ago, I remember it perfectly now, like I’ve returned to it after a long journey abroad.
It’s such a lovely peek into the past and my marriage.
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Last night I told Elysha that I had a song stuck in my head. She asked me what the song was. I told her that she wouldn’t know it. She assured me she would.
“Fine,” I said. “It’s I’ve Never Been To Me.”
“I know it,” she said.
Of course, she knows it. The woman can’t find west if she’s driving into a setting sun with a compass on her lap and a flock of geese visibly flying south overhead, but she knows just about every song ever written.
Lyrics included.
She asked me how this song could possibly be stuck in my head. I explained that before my DJ partner and I could burn our own CD, the song was on a CD that I would throw in at weddings if the dinner was running long.
“But I heard it today in the supermarket,” I explained. “It’s been trapped ever since.”
I also told her that a quick Wikipedia dive revealed that the song had tanked in 1977, barely scraping the bottom of the Billboard chart, but it was re-released in 1982 after some insane DJ in Tampa began playing it, and his listeners — also clearly insane — loved it.
Charlene was working in her husband’s sweetshop in the UK when the record industry called, looking to re-release the song and relaunch her career.
The song reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and charted worldwide, but it turned out to be her only hit song.
“I can’t believe you know the song,” I said to Elysha. “You even know the ridiculous spoken words in the middle?”
“Yeah…” she said. “What were they?”
“I’m not saying,” I said. “I don’t want the song any more stuck than it already is.”
“If you don’t tell me, I’m going to play it.”
“Don’t.”
“I will,” she said, smiling.
“Don’t.”
Then she did. She played it and sang it to me. Smiling the whole time. Looking beautiful and joyous in a way that only she can. Speaking the words from that ridiculous spoken-word bridge (which is wisely absent from the YouTube version of the song) like she was speaking them to me. Further cementing the song in my mind.
“I’ve been undressed by kings and seen some things that a woman ain’t supposed to see,” she sang.
“Yeah?” I said. “What wasn’t she supposed to see?”
“Ugly penises.”
I laughed. She’s annoying and cruel, but she’s funny, too.
More than 24 hours later, and the song is still jammed in my head. She tried to tell me that research indicates the best way to get rid of a song is to play it through to the end. Beginning to end.
Nonsense, of course.
Or at least nonsense if the person you love is singing along.
Now she’s sitting across from me again right now. The same song is still playing in my head. It’s so awful, and it’s going to be with me for days.
I’m not saying a word to her. She can sit over there, thinking my mind is empty of “subtle whoring” (a line from the song) and Marlow in Monte Carlo and ugly penises.
She can’t be trusted.
