I got tagged with the Songs and Memories meme a few weeks back by Hot Cross Mum. I could pretend that I haven’t responded yet because I’ve been incredibly super-busy with important professional activities and positive parenting.
But, friends, that would be a lie.
The meme rules are: “Name a song that reminds you of something, that has a story for you. Not necessarily your favourite song or a even a song that you love, but a song that instantly takes you back to that time and place.”
I’ve been wracking my brains trying to find a song, any song, that would make me seem even fractionally cool. I admit defeat. I have every Smiths album ever made. I can quote Green Day lyrics and I know I spent years listening to REM and Billy Bragg bootlegs. But for some weird reason, every significant moment of my life is inextricably linked with a deeply, completely, shoot-me-now-embarrassing, song.
My first kiss took place while Five Star was playing in the background. Yes, Five Star. I rounded second base to the sounds of Richard Marx. And sadly, those are relative high points in my musical memory bank. I don't even want to think of the memory conjured up by She's Like the Wind. Oh, the shame.
So, after a good deal of thought, I was inspired by Rosie Scribble's response to this meme - she wrote about the song she associates with her daughter's birth. I didn't have music when Flea was born (I was out cold) but I suppose this song is my version of Rosie's single parent anthem.
I wish I could say that my single parent anthem was Green Day. Or Bob Dylan. Leonard Cohen, even. But it's Better Life, by Keith Urban. I know. Please don't judge me. I'm so much cooler than this might make me appear. Well, a bit cooler, at any rate (please note, comments on this post referring to the unfortunate Miley-gate incident will, of course, be deleted) .
To set the scene, I heard this song the day after I had told my ex I was divorcing him. I'd just had a phone call from one of my best friends saying she would never forgive me for what I was doing. And then I'd spoken with my lawyer, who told me what I should expect from the divorce settlement - his guess was somewhere in the region of minus 50 grand. Shit.
I was driving with Flea to our Little Dippers swimming class, which took place in the middle of the Sussex countryside. As we pulled off the M23 onto the road towards Burgess Hill, I was practically hyperventilating. I remember looking at Flea in the back of the car, and thinking, "What the HELL am I doing? Why am I doing this? Lots of women look the other way. I could look the other way. I’d could just look the other way and keep looking at the nanny and the cleaner and the nice house, right?”Then Keith Urban kicked in and I started singing along. The lyic is :
Someday baby, You and I are gonna be the ones
Good luck's gonna shine on
Someday baby you and I are gonna be the ones
So hold on
We're headed for a better life
There's a place for you and me
Where we can dream as big as the sky
I know it's hard to see it now
But baby someday we're gonna fly
This road we're on, you know it might be long
But my faith is strong
It's all that really matters
We drove through the country lanes, sunshine streaming through the canopy of trees above us, Flea in the back seat admiring her first ever pair of shoes, and I was just filled with this conviction that, no matter what, we'd be okay.
We still listen to Keith in the car every once in a while, and these days Flea knows the words and joins in, and we sing along together. One day she will tell people about the deeply uncool song that her mother inflicted on her, but I won't care - it's a great song. And it still makes me smile.
I'm pretty sure everyone has done this by now, but just in case they haven't and they fancy it, I tag: Being a Mummy, Glowstars, Beki's Bloggy Bits, Bringing up Charlie and Motherhood: the final frontier.
