Yesterday, I woke up thinking about the Go-Go’s. I’d had the Belinda Carlisle song, “Heaven is a Place on Earth” stuck in my head for days—it was probably playing at the grocery store and got lodged in there. (This phenomenon is my constant curse.) Anyway, this one lyric was on repeat in my brain jukebox:
In this world, we're just beginnin'
To understand the miracle of livin'
Baby, I was afraid before
But I'm not afraid anymore
What does it mean? Is Belinda singing about child birth? Is the woman who sang, “This Town” and “Skidmarks on My Heart” singing about settling down? There is nothing inherently wrong with singing about these things, but something about the transition from singing…
We're all dreamers - we're all whores
Discarded stars
Like worn out cars
…to singing about, “the miracle of livin’,” was low-level bothering me for days.
Growing up, my parents had a great record collection. They were young adults (and parents) in the ‘80s when bands like Blondie, the Ramones, Devo, and the Go-Go’s were big, so this was the music my brother and I grew up around. (That, and a whole lotta 70’s rock that I didn’t care for and kind of ignored—so much guitar noodling. I’m looking at you, Lynyrd Skynyrd.) They’d go out to clubs like the Roxy and Numbers to see these bands live, dancing the night away, and leaving us with babysitters. We were always at music stores, flipping through records. And I remember staring at the album art from Beauty and the Beat and Vacation in our living room.
Anyway, yesterday morning I woke up thinking about the badass Go-Go’s music of old as opposed to this Belinda Carlisle song that is destined to live on Sunny 99.1 and soft rock playlists forever. And I had this cheesy thought: “Young people make better music because their hearts beat stronger.” While it’s cheesy, I also think it’s kind of true.
This is not to say that music or art of any kind shouldn’t be made by older people, or that it’s not good in a larger sense. As you age, you get more proficient at things. You’ve had time to do them over and over again. You’ve got more experience. And sometimes, truly beautiful things grow out of that. Make art forever, people!
But, in The Breakfast Club Ally Sheedy says, “When you grow up, your heart dies.” And I’m not sure that she’s wrong. Other things get stronger but our hearts… Maybe they don’t die, so much as they just get really busy with Important Things.
Consider this post a sort of beginning of a larger Tiny History that I’ll continue later—my own Tiny History about writing and art and a giant plastic bin full of journals that I’ve been lugging around for many years.
For now, I have to go do Important Things!