They're Playing My Song

I am sick to my stomach today. As much as I feigned excitement about the coming semester, I am not in the mood to go back to the lifestyle it requires: waking up at 7am, walking to and from distant campuses, faking a smile for strangers, awkward encounters, etc. I almost feel like I'm too old for it. Most of my age-appropriate friends have either graduated or decided not to attend college. I am an old lady walking around with Ugg wearing youngsters trying to act like I'm into Miley Cyrus or something.

But I am.

I have a secret that I would only share with the people crazy enough to read this very music blog: I have watched Hannah Montana, I have enjoyed Miley Cyrus's creeptastic rants about her father, Billy Ray, and I have a really strange reason for loving for her latest single, "Party in the U.S.A.". I know! Stop reading now. It might only get worse! This is ridiculous. I'm stuck in the movie Big or something. I'm going backwards in time. While it sounds juvenile to appreciate Cyrus, I promise if you stick it out until my point is finished, you just may find there's quasi-sophisticated reasoning behind my madness.

Okay, to prove my point, here are the lyrics:

I hopped off the plane at LAX
with a dream and my cardigan
welcome to the land of fame excess,
am I gonna fit in?

Jumped in the cab,
Here I am for the first time
Look to the right and I see the Hollywood sign
This is all so crazy
Everybody seems so famous

My tummys turnin and I'm feelin kinda home sick
Too much pressure and I'm nervous,
That's when the taxi man turned on the radio
and a Jay Z song was on
and the Jay Z song was on
and the Jay Z song was on

CHORUS:
So I put my hands up
They’re playing my song,
And the butterflies fly away
Noddin’ my head like yea
Movin my hips like yea
I got my hands up,
They’re playin my song
I know im gonna be ok
Yea, It's a party in the USA

Get to the club in my taxi cab
Everybody's lookin at me now
Like “whos that chick, thats rockin’ kicks?
She gotta be from out of town”

So hard with my girls all around me
Its definitely not a Nashville party
Cause’ all I see are stilettos
I guess I never got the memo

My tummys turnin and I'm feelin kinda home sick
Too much pressure and I'm nervous
That's when the D.J. dropped my favorite tune
and a Britney song was on
and the Britney song was on
and the Britney song was on

CHORUS:
So I put my hands up
They’re playing my song,
And the butterflies fly away
Noddin’ my head like yea
Movin my hips like yea
I got my hands up,
They’re playin my song
I know im gonna be ok
Yea, It's a party in the USA

Feel like hoppin' on a flight (on a flight)
Back to my hometown tonight (town tonight)
Something stops me every time (every time)
The DJ plays my song and I feel alright

CHORUS:
So I put my hands up
They’re playing my song,
And the butterflies fly away
Noddin’ my head like yea
Movin my hips like yea
I got my hands up,
They’re playin my song
I know im gonna be ok
Yea, It's a party in the USA

Okay: when I first heard this song being made fun of on The Soup where Miss Cyrus was kind enough to entertain us all with a pole routine and crazy gyrations on top of a makeshift ice cream truck during her Teen Choice Awards performance, I found myself bopping my head along. I didn't want to but it happened. Then, as I'm proned to do, I watched the same episode of The Soup again. And again. Joel McHale is one of my all time favorite people so I can never get enough. Anyway, with each viewing I found myself creeping more and more out of my seat to the point that I wasn't just laughing, I was enjoying it. Something about the lyrics made that crazy bell inside of me ring.

This song is all about music in a really interesting perspective. Other songs may have done this before but I didn't catch it. Blatantly the lyrics are saying music will save us from everything. This young girl arrives in LA full of frustrations and anguish about what lies ahead of her then she joyously hears her favorite Jay-Z song (sometimes replaced by "Michael" - as in Jackson - during live performances) and everything is okay. She's suddenly moving her head "like yea" and shaking her hips "like yea". I'm not sure what that means but I approve. And I know what she's saying.

Who among us hasn't had a god awful day when suddenly our favorite song comes on the radio and we instinctively raise the volume knob and starting singing along? This freaking song has tapped into the truth behind the love of music. I might still be slightly intoxicated but I sincerely believe this.

I'll give you an example:

When I thought I would be a driver, I took a meaningless computerized permit test at the DMV. I was about a 100 years old at the time, nowhere near 16 or whatever the normal age is, and I absolutely didn't want to be a part of this scene. I don't know if you're aware of what happens at a DMV in New Jersey but there are hairy, old men with open shirts and large protruding stomachs, scary, young women with so much hairspray on their heads they look like bad wax statues, and angry people of all shapes and sizes behind the counter - a situation that can only be described as the creepy leading the creepier. It was one of the most miserable days of my life. I am not a person that gets excited about studying for a test that will only lead to bankruptcy and car crashes. Suddenly, in the middle of maybe question 22 on the test, John Mayer pipes out of the speakers. "Waiting on the World to Change".

My head popped up, I regained a sense of the outside world, and passed the test. I scheduled a driving test date that I never attended and marched out the door. It was a victory - mostly due in part to them "playing my song, and the butterflies fly away, moving my head like yea..." You get the idea.

This is not the first time a song came on the radio that miraculously changed my thought process - not by a mile. John Mayer always comes on at exactly the right time and just the other day I was feeling like a sack of broken old bones (this is not a strange feeling for me) in the car when Snow Patrol's "Hands Open" started playing on my favorite, favorite radio station, 101.9 RXP, and I had to turn it up. I was barely even conscious and I just had to hear that song louder. It is simply involuntary. That same day there was also this James Morrison song on the same station that I managed to write down in my phone as not to forget it when I could consciously look it up. Some things just sound so good (hence the title of this blog, baby).

In relation, I realized yesterday how much music can take the shape of a human being. My dear friend in from Ithaca for the weekend was playing a great deal of music in her car on the way to a concert. While we have similar musical appreciation, I couldn't help but notice that her music sounded very much like her - not her voice but the style of who she is. It fit her just right, like a snug jacket. When someone is open and honest about the kind of music they love and know themselves the way they should like she does, this wonderful cloud of music surrounds them in just the right way. I can't see if my music does this as it must be an aura thing that only others can see but when it's there, it's beautiful. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. It's almost too poetic to express properly.

So here's a video of Miss Miley doing her thing and getting me all messed up and introspective for no reason. I sort of hope you enjoy. She rocks it out better than real rock stars. I hate that I like this stupid/non-stupid girl.

I'm sick, right? I'm a sicko.