Red's Soundtrack: "Faster than a Roller Coaster"

Tracks

“Mony, Mony” – Tommy James & the Shondells
“Everyday” – Buddy Holly
“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” – The Tokens

Turning back the dial to the late 1980s, my memory clicks to a very few imprecise flashes. For instance, the summer of 1988 was hot in Northern Illinois. How hot was it? So hot that the skin of my chubby legs burned at every touch against the vinyl seats of our dung-brown family station wagon.

Plenty of times we piled into the station wagon after a long afternoon in the sun at Gartner Park where my brother had a baseball game, and maybe even I had a game of Tee Ball.  The backseat faced backward, and we could see the road below in at least one spot where the tailpipe had burned through the floorboard. At least that’s the story, and I am sticking to it.

After that very hot summer, I started kindergarten, and in those final years of the decade I transitioned from the standard bowl-cut haircut to a flat top. My 70s era hand-me-downs gradually gave way to the baggy pants and wild t-shirts, many featuring the bright fluorescent colors popularized in the early 90s.

While cassette tapes were the popular mode of music consumption and CDs were rumored as their eventual replacement, the cutting of my Rock’n’Roll teeth was predominately done with vinyl. We had a Fisher Price portable record player, and I basically had free reign over my parents’ sparse record collection comprised mostly of music from the 1950s & 60s.

Many afternoons I’d set the player with its tan body and orange turntable on the floor of the room just off our dining room. Growing up, the room was lovingly called the toy room, and I assumed for a long time that every house had a room with the same designation to go along with a kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom and so on. For privacy, the door could be closed or slammed if the occasion called for such drama, and hanging on the top of the door was a NERF basketball hoop that might just have been the most used toy in the house. Although we barely ever used the foam nerf basketball that came with the hoop. Instead, we used a pink, blue and yellow stripped ball designed for use in a pool – it was little harder allowing for more possibilities ­– and I can’t say whether or not that ball was ever actually used in a pool. We simply were not much of watersport kind of family.

I’d spread the records out on the floor, pretending that I’d pick anything other than the usual playlist.

First on the spinner was the Greatest Hits from Tommy James & the Shondells. It’s a curious addition to my mom’s collection, since she has famously proclaimed “over and over” how she dislikes “Crimson & Clover” because it’s just “over and over.” Yet, it was there, and when I was 6 years old, it didn’t get any better than “Mony, Mony”. It was my sugar highs set to music. I have vague memories of a friend and me using toy tennis rackets for guitars, and pretending to play to it. I doubt I even had a concept of what air guitar was at that point, but I sure knew how to do it.

I also believe that being a growing fan of professional wrestling that “Mony, Mony” would be the perfect entrance song for when I launched my grappling career, if for no other reason I found it fast and loud, and it reminded me of the Ultimate Warrior’s frantic sprint to the ring.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a little more about this song and album. First, I never warmed to Billy Idol’s version of the song, even though it was likely getting radio play at the time. Same goes for Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now.” The concept of covering songs already, in my mind, perfected was lost on me, and I think it tainted my view on covers for a long time into the future.

Second, I listened to this entire record a lot. I have inherited this album with others, and I can’t help be swept by a wave nostalgia whenever tunes like “Mirage” and “Sweet Cherry Wine” come on. The nostalgia, I find, settles in my knees, and I feel as if I could travel back a few decades in a couple steps.

Third, I spent a lot of time looking at the album cover and inside. This was full-on psychedelic era stuff, and, at 6, they were some freaky looking people, which contrasted the album waiting on deck. Buddy Holly looked like my brother. Well, not really, but he had the glasses, cut hair and the appearance of pretty much everyone around me.

His photo was in black and white, which I associated with him being dead more than anything else. It’s funny how the young mind works. There’s a sweetness to his sound that catches the ear, no matter the age, and “Everyday” caught mine the most – almost challenging “Mony, Mony” for top spot in my young heart. Plus, the lyrics included, “faster than a roller coaster,” which sent my imagination racing around loops and curves at blistering speeds.

Once through the Buddy Holly album, it was time to convert the player into 45 mode – a simple process of pulling up a piece in the middle of the turntable and clicking it into place. The 45 of choice was “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Of course, changing the speeds of the table was a must on occasion to get the Chipmunk version of my favorite tunes.

Years later, this song popped up in Disney’s “The Lion King,” and looking back, I think there might have been someone spying on me. You see, it has become commonplace to use old pop music to sell things and put in movies. That is because they catch the attention of young ears just as much as they do old ones.

Of course, none of this was running through my head then, I just liked the noise. I still like the noise, and the simplicity of the memories resonates. Time moves on, and Buddy had it right, it moves “faster than a roller coaster.”