Growing up in the 1980’s, this was the sort of pop music inspiration that informed my formative years, so it’s a wonder my taste isn’t even more gratingly awful than it is. This ear worm would take up residence in my head some days, making itself into a mantra that would later haunt my absences. Subconsciously I was preparing a strategy to never be forgotten – this song seemed to indicate that was important.
My hair never went this high, and my clothes never got this extreme, but the 80’s opened the door to my own sense of style and fashion, for better and often worse. Bold colors, abstract designs, excess and over-the-top madness were the first things that my younger self saw on the television and in the magazines. All the girls in my class wore Liz Claiborne perfume, while my Mom had a bottle of Lou Lou that absolutely transfixed me. She rarely, if ever, wore it – someone gave it to her as a gift and it was decidedly too bold to be her style. I adored it. A few years ago I found a bottle of it, and usually break it out once around the holidays at the whatever over-the-top social gathering that happens to occupy the season.
As I listen to this song now, it feels just as bouncy and happy and hopeful as it did back then, and also slightly empty and vapid. The melody is strong, but the lyrics and their cliches of love fall a little flat. Still, maybe that’s what we need again. Cheesy, cliched hope and fun – even if it’s all a bit hollow.
