Ahh, they just don't make 'em like Marilyn McCoo of The Fifth Dimension anymore. She defined talent, beauty, and class: a combination rarely found in singers today... with the third attribute sadly gone missing. When did having decorum become so uncool, anyway? I'm going to pin this one on Madonna. If that wall had a few cracks in it already, Madonna brought her wrecking ball with her when she came onto the scene in the 80's. And tear it down she did. I wonder if she is proud of how overly sexualized young female singers have become in her slutting-it-up wake.  

"Sex sells!" Calvin Klein told us as he pushed the edge in advertising his designer jeans. Yes, it apparently does. But what then is it you are ultimately selling? Well, Madonna? Britney? Miley?

....anyone? Bueller?

I'll give you a hint: it isn't r-e-s-p-e-c-t as a woman.     

Oh, so back to Marilyn McCoo. Yeah, she ended up with her man, and Bill couldn't wait to marry her. And Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. will celebrate their 42nd anniversary this year.   

Class dismissed. :) 

Obsession isn't only just a sexy cologne from Calvin Klein. When brought to life through music, it's quite a fascinating study in abnormal psychology. That persistent, anxious domination of illogical thoughts forcing itself into your mind ain't love, baby.... but that's another topic altogether.  

Obsession For Him: "The Stalker!"  [The Police, "Every Breath You Take"] Oh, on the surface, this catchy tune might seem to be a romantic serenade as Sting laments:  

Since you've gone I've been lost without a trace
I dream at night, I can only see your face
I look around, but it's you I can't replace
I feel so cold, and I long for your embrace
I keep crying baby, baby please

But the reality check gets more than a little creepy and uncomfortable with the haunting refrain reminding us that she belongs to him, and:

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake
I'll be watching you
Every move you make, every step you take
I'll be watching you

I'm oddly glad to know that Sting wrote this song about someone who stalked him once, and not the other way around.  

Obsession For Her: "The Lovesick!" [Dido, "Here With Me"] Oh my dear Dido, I feel ya. Who among us hasn't been so entirely taken with someone and totally smitten before?  Ummm.... except that you're singing about a one night stand that has sent you into a tailspin:

I don't want to call my friends
For they might wake me from this dream
And I can't leave this bed
Risk forgetting all that's been

And now you can't even function in every day life because you are so consumed with this man. Can you say "Fatal Attraction: material?:

And I won't go
I won't sleep
I can't breathe
Until you're resting here with me

I won't leave 
I can't hide
I cannot be
Until you're resting here with me

Come on now, girl.... ain't no man so fine you need to pine away like this!  No, really.  I mean it.

So both The Police and Dido are in my top favorites of their eras. And I may or may not admit to having played these songs a couple hundred times in the cassette deck with my own obsession...  ;)

To this day, every time I get a whiff of diesel exhaust in the crisp winter air, my thoughts drift back to the U.K. and the small Welsh village where I once lived. The skies were always drab gray, the hedgerows lush green, and the fumes from the red double decker buses winding around town lingered heavily in the air.

It was the 80s. The bold era of Reagan and Thatcher. The Cold War. And here I was, an American in my young and adventurous 20s, working in a hair salon in Great Britain.  

And then I think of Wil...

Of all the possibilities for a summer romance in a foreign land, it turned out that a tall and lanky American serviceman from South Carolina would capture my attention overseas. Maybe we were both homesick and londely, but in Wil, I'd found an equally restless hearted soulmate, and we were quite smitten with one another. 

Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA" album was huge the summer of my American sailor. Wil and I would talk for hours on end while we played Springsteen over and over again at his little stone cottage on the edge of town. I don't think I've ever shared as many hopes and dreams with anyone as I did with Wil. I'm sure I would have married him one day... 

Unexpectedly and without notice, Wil got an immediate, temporary transfer to another base hundreds of miles away; then about a month later, I had to go back to the USA before Wil came back. In the whirlwind separation, we lost track of one another... I didn't know his military mailing address, and there was no internet, email or cell phones back then.  

Maybe you could say we were dealt an ironic Shakespearean ending. Or maybe you could say that it just wasn't meant to be...  

But when the wind blows just right, or I hear a certain Bruce Springsteen song, I still remember Wil and the summer of 1985, and wonder what might have been.

This Girl's In Love With You

He was the first boy I ever had a crush on, that Herb Alpert. So what that I was only 8...

Growing up, there was always some kind of music bursting from the family room, flooding the whole house with delicious Hi-Fi sound. That seemed right as rain to me.

We had a cool Dad who bought big speakers from the Allied Radio catalog. On weekends, Dad would take the giant speaker cabinets down from the top shelf of the built-in bookcase that he made specially to house them. (World Book Encyclopedias took up the shelf below, and beneath that, the record turn table and a spare needle cartridge or two, seems one of the kids was always "ruining" his needles!) He would set the speakers down on the orange shag carpeted floor, strategically positioning them around the room for optimal stereo sound. (You'd really get chewed out if you accidentally tripped over the speaker wire running across the floor) Then Dad would pick an album, sometimes unveiling his latest selection to arrive in the mail from the Columbia House Record Club.

Back in the "Make Love, Not War" days, music was a total love affair between your ears. Pretty much, your only visual rapture was swooning over the 33 1/3 album cover art while hanging on every note. There was no MTV to oversaturate the senses, and musicians weren't often seen and somewhat mysterious.

My 8-year-old self doesn't remember seeing Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass on television, but Wikipedia tells me he had a few specials that aired. They probably came on past my bedtime, come to think of it. Nevertheless, I adored his band's instrumental South Of The Border sound.

But when we were treated to a surprise first actual vocal in a Tijuana Brass song, sung by Herb, himself... I was in love.

Written by Burt Bacharach, "This Guy's In Love With You" is a very simple tune, but to me is the epitome of romance. It doesn't matter that Herb isn't the greatest of singers. Now and then the best songs come from someone who isn't a true singer at all. The charm here is in Herb's soft-spoken, almost shy vocals. He truly sounds like he is in love.

The adult me looks at this video and notes Herb Alpert was quite the stud in his day; not to mention a total bad ass with all that he achieved musically and with co-founding the A&M (Alpert & Moss) record label. Seeing his good looks and sexy smile on film, it just occurred to me that more than a few of the men in my life have resembled Herb Alpert in one way or another...

Ahh, if only he were 30 years younger. :)