Saturday night at the gay cafe we stayed at it way later than we we're supposed to. No one wanted to go home.I'm in charge of music at the cafe. I'd run through my play list, so I asked people what they wanted to hear. The requests were all pretty predictable, and some were funny.
And then one young man asked if I had Bronski Beat.
OMFG. Bronski Beat. Love and Money. Hearing it after all these years was like cracking open a time capsule from a very brief but very intense time in my life.
It was 1985. I was a struggling grad student on a six-month stint in Columbus Ohio, at the Ohio Data User's Center, doing population projections. I was befriended by the Center's librarian, Jean, a thirty-something divorcee (I was a very tender 24). Let's just say she expanded my world.
She loved Bronski Beat and that song. And I don't think I've heard it since then. In fact, I haven't thought about Columbus or Jean the librarian in all this time. When my time at the Center was up I returned to grad school and that was that.
Sheesh! I'm so fucking old because that was 25 years ago. And Saturday night at the gay cafe Love & Money brought it all back like a life-flashes-before-your-eyes movie trailer.
5 comments:
This "Love and Money" was my favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vnukxmZXE8
It really is amazing how certain songs can snap us right back in time to specific people and events. There's an Air Supply song that can make me 14 again and at my first HS dance, and a Chicago song that can make me a young 20-something on a hot date. Wow. Memories.
Why can't I remember that song? I was in the gay bar every weekend during that time.
Those trips back are fun...like a whole body memory.
Ohio State class of '85. The Garage downtown and Mean Mr. Mustards on campus...heh.
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