The song: "You've Got A Friend" by James Taylor (just imagining this song in my head gives me very bad shivers, as does JT's voice)
Here's the video:
Uggggghhhhh...
Telling people you hate James Taylor is akin to telling people that you think Robin Williams is lame (which I do... I don't think he is funny in the slightest), but people always get this look, like, "What? What is wrong with you? Are you a real American? Do you have horns?..." However, my dislike of James Taylor has specific roots that go back to one day in the late 1980s...
Picture it... rural Maryland, 1988. I was about to enter my freshman year of high school, and it was "time to get braces." Secretly, I was always rather excited about having braces, which I considered to be the hallmark of teendom. For years, I'd taken lollipop sticks and bent them around my front teeth "like a retainer," but now was my chance to get the real deal.
Lying back in the orthodontist's chair, I relaxed to the soothing melodies of James Taylor piping out of the office's audio system. Ahhh, this isn't so bad... first, the teeth cleaning (chilling to James Taylor), then the braces fitting on the molars (ehhh, still James Taylor), next, the prep work to get each tooth ready (still that James Taylor song! And no, I'm starting to think I really don't want you as a friend right about now...), then the adhesive (holy shit, is that James Taylor STILL playing?)...
... And then lying in the chair for at least half an hour while the glue dries (I am really fucking hating James Taylor right about now), and finally the tightening of the braces (OH MY GOD!! This is the eighth time I've heard "You've Got A Friend" in the past fucking hour! Please, oh please, end my misery...).
No kidding... it was about four straight hours of one James Taylor CD looped over and over and over and over and over -- the songs "You've Got a Friend" and "You Are My Only One" particularly stick in my craw -- until I thought I would jump up on the dentist chair and rip the speaker out of the damn ceiling. I mean, I wasn't a fan of James Taylor to start with, but I will forever associate that nasal voice with my multiple-hour braces initiation, which sucked, and the braces themselves, which, by the way, were really not as cool or fun as I'd hoped.
In fact, here I am in 1990 with my brother (who had just chopped off his mullet) two years after surviving the "I'm in hell with James Taylor" incident. I'm hiding my metal mouth behind a non-smile:
Also, please note the requisite late-80s/early-90s "claw bang" and "spiral perm." As a total side note, I was also working at Domino's Pizza -- answering the phones -- at this juncture in time.
So... I planned to also include a story on a different bad song and my marching band experience in this post, but alas, it is 9:45pm here, and I have Islamic Law to prepare for tomorrow, therefore I must go...
Look forward to sheer dorkiness tomorrow! Ta-ta...
1 comment:
Love your hair there, girl. You must play Way Back Wednesday with us. It's a RIOT.
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