Come to My Eighth Grade CYO Dance; or, 90s Nightmare Music!
For some reason the other day, the Loggins and Messina song "Your Mama Don't Dance" gets in my brain and makes itself all comfortable. I decided to exorcise the demon in the only way I know how...by posting a YouTube link to the song on my Facebook account, along with the comment that I have horrifically scarring childhood memories of my Dad dressed like an extra from CHiPs dancing like a frog in a blender to this song at many, many a wedding reception.
So then my friend Joe Angier comments that, with or without my father dancing, this song was a prominent example of what he calls "Seventies Nightmare Music." I got to thinking about what would be Nineties Nightmare Music, and I think I've come up with some good (bad) ones.
All of these songs, by the way, were played at every single eighth grade CYO dance I ever attended.
Deep Blue Something--Breakfast at Tiffany's
I said, what about Breakfast at Tiffany's, and she said, I think I remember that song, And as I recall, I think it totally sucked, and anyone over the age of 12 ought to know that Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard aren't enough to save a doomed romance.
Spin Doctors--Two Princes
This one couldn't even be saved by having the Sesame Street Muppets sing it. Which they did.
Expose--I'll Never Get Over You (Getting Over Me)
This is the song they'd put on so that we could all slow dance The Frankenstein. That's what I called the dance we did where we'd hold our arms out straight from our shoulders, keeping our partners at the maximum possible distance, and lurch awkardly from foot to foot. Contrary to what you might think, this was the most romantic thing in the world when you were 13 years old and from a rural German-American community and therefore completely genetically devoid of any rhythm or grace (see Dad's "frog in a blender" mentioned above). However, if you actually SAID it made everyone look like Frankenstein, you would never actually be asked to dance The Frankenstein.
Also, someone (not me) would always end up crying in the bathroom during this song.
Also, yes, the cinematography here was inspired by a commerical for Massengill, and don't you always go wading in the ocean in pantyhose and Doc Martens?
Crash Test Dummies--Afternoons and Coffeespoons
I'm not sure what exactly the DJ expected us to do with this song. I think this might have been played whenever he snuck out behind the dumpster to drink. No one ever danced to it. This was where people went to go fix their hair, or get more Doritos, or find out who was crying in the bathroom and why, or try to work up their nerve to ask someone to dance The Frankenstein, or sneak into the tornado shelters/old shower rooms at St. Mary's and make out.
This song was also my introduction to T.S. Eliot. I went on to get a master's in English, specializing in poetry. Make of that what you will.
Dan Baird--I Love You Period
The church ladies would not let the DJ play John Cougar Mellencamp's "Hurts So Good" at CYO dances on grounds that the lyrics were too risque, but this one got played all the time.
I think the moral of this is that if you're a girl, you hear a crappy song with one decent line that's stolen from one of the foremost poets of the twentieth century, and you go on to get a degree that will let you teach English. If you're a boy, you hear a crappy song and it inspires you to sort of learn second-grade grammar in the hopes that your English teacher will have pity on you and let you into her pants.
Bryan Adams--Everything I Do
Two things you need to know about this song: one, it was the theme to that god-awful version of "Robin Hood" starring Kevin Costner. Two, my little brother decided when he was about ten or so that he was going to have this as the first song at his wedding. Mom told him that he was a boy, and therefore he would have no say in his own wedding. Eric got mad and cried and said it wasn't fair that I got to be the girl because I'd get whatever I wanted for my wedding and I couldn't care less.
Apache Indian--Boom Shak-a-lak
Saving the best for last here. I didn't have cable at home, so I very, very rarely got to see MTV. I had therefore never seen this video before today. It sort of seems like what you'd get if you took a Bollywood film, re-cast it with the Fly Girls from In Living Color, dubbed in Cookie Monster singing in pidgin English and Hindi, and incorporated a lot of air guitar into your choreography. Oh, and put in random sproingy sound effects. In short, WIN.
Thanks for coming along the musical memory lane with me. What 90s nightmare music did I miss?
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I will say, however, that I still listen to Ace of Base from time to time. That album is solid gold.
One note on the Costner flick: though in most every way it was atrocious, Alan Rickman was a scream as the Sheriff of Nottingham. It's a shame his performance was wasted on that film.
Man, this guy made me embarassed to be Puerto Rican for like 6 months.
Fun post!
(Just the still image of the "Robin Hood" movie was enough to unsettle me.)
Robin--I rarely danced at these dances. One, see my genetic propensity for "frog in a blender." Two, see my willingness to point out that we all look like Frankenstein when we slow dance. Apparently, honesty is not a turn-on to 14-year-old boys. I spent most of the CYO dances observing all the various complicated power-grabs and underminings and questions of love versus social standing going on. (Jane Austen would have fit right in at St. Mary's gym.)
Shaggy--I forgot Ace of Base and Hootie and the Blowfish.
Kevin--I think I blocked most of that movie out. I do remember Mom buying the "Prince of Thieves" breakfast cereal at my brother's request.
Shiral--There is no escaping "Two Princes."
Brian--of course, you had the BeeGees.
MJwycha--My brother for some reason assigned himself the nickname "Rico Suave" in high school. I don't know why. By that point, I was away at college.
Peppermint--I'm simultaneously embarrased and proud to be able to sing most of "Shoop."
Beth--I literally had tears rolling down my face when I watched the video for "Boom Shak-a-lak." Bob wanted to know what was so funny.
It's been 15 years, and sometimes I still wake up at night with "Perchik-Hodel Dance" stuck in my head and the sheet music on the insides of my eyelids.
Pavanne--I owned two of these songs on cassette single. I'm not telling you which two.
I remember they made my skin crawl.
Pavanne--I'm neither confirming nor denying that.
Informer
The Dance - Garth Brooks
Naughty by Nature
Whoot there it is
haha that was fun, I could keeeeeep on typin.
I danced The Frankenstein at my second CYO Dance with Guy Glendenning to "The Dance." I was in a hip-to-ankle leg brace at the time, because nothing makes being in seventh grade better than having to wear a very large beige orthopedic corrective device.
I had that thing on for the first CYO dance a month before too. That time, my plan was to use it to my advantage--I'd been in love with Dominic Simmonds for YEARS and knew that he was out of my goofy geeky league but that his mother would kill him if she found out he'd turned down a cripple who asked him to dance. Also, the brace gave me an excuse for not dancing to any of the fast songs and making a fool of myself, and for dancing even more like Frankenstein than everyone else.
I spent all night working up my nerve, only to have Beth Riedaman swoop in and scoop him up for the last song of the night.
The next time, he wasn't there and I had to take my pick of what asked me. I got Guy. I think he later ended up in jail.
And you've now made me unearth the singer Babyface.
There was some good stuff that came out of those couple of years, of course, but most of it didn't get played at CYO Dances. Nirvana was strictly verboten.
My worst!? LFO (Lyte Funky Ones), "Every Other Time" admittedly 1999/2000, but I suffered through this with my daughter. One line goes: Sometimes we swim around /Like two dolphins in the ocean of our hearts. That line used to make us giggle and puke.
Bell--My friend Denise commented that I would have to go on the "Moonlight Skate" with her to the Bryan Adams song, but I'd have to be the one to skate backward, because she can't skate backwards.
Ah, precious memories.
BTW, when I was little, my parents told me that they'd disown me if I ever got to be a teenager and they heard I was making out with anyone at 1.) the roller rink or 2.) the public swimming pool. I don't think it was the making out part that bothered them so much as the white-trashiness of the venue.
But "Boom Shak-a-lak" is so atrocious it becames sublime.