Takin’ it to the streets…and Keep on loving you

I’ve been fortunate enough to move into a new office at my job and that’s really cool.  It’s a bit echo-y in there since I opted to go without carpet (easier to breathe for this wheezy girl), so I’ve been turning a radio on in the morning just to provide a little background noise.  All I can pick up is 96.5 FM which is fine since it’s turned down fairly low; as long as it’s not country music, I can cope.

I’ve had two musical moments in the past week I had to share.

I was researching something, completely in the zone, when all of the sudden I found I was singing along to the chorus of Takin’ It to the Streets.  Damn those Doobie Brothers; that Michael McDonald vocal is infectious!  I didn’t even realize what was on the radio, but apparently your subconscious can’t have Takin’ It to the Streets playing anywhere nearby without forcing you to sing along.  Tried to get back to work, but no, I had to wait for the chorus so I could sing along…I ain’t blind and I don’t like what I think I see…Takin’ it to the streets.  Your assignment is to have someone play this song near you and I dare you, I double dog dare you, not to sing along with the chorus.  It’s IMPOSSIBLE!  Some sort of Doobie Brothers mind control.

And today it was all background noise, blah blah blah, and then I heard the opening notes of a song that suddenly took me back to somewhere in elementary school.  Maybe fourth grade or thereabouts, sitting on the bench waiting for my turn at bat at recess, having a lyrics battle with my on-again, off-again beau…we must’ve been off-again for this song to be relevant.  I remember throwing out at him  you should’ve seen by the look in my eyes, baby, there was something missin’… and he retorted with you should’ve known by the tone of my voice maybe, but you didn’t listen.  Yeah, we were battling with Reo Speedwagon’s Keep on Loving You.  Funny how you don’t think of something for years and years and a song can bring it back.  I remember “battling” with him another time using Berlin’s The Metro (you know Berlin, so horribly famous for that song Take My Breath Away that I dislike so much, but The Metro was terrific) I remember hating you for loving me…but I’d entirely forgotten these wicked lyrical exchanges until today.  Somewhere in high school, I remember him singing Naughty Girls Need Love Too, but that’s an entirely different conversation…