10 Songs on Tuesday

Man, Tuesday seems to have come around quickly this week! But I'm having fun making the random lists so here goes another one. Yesterday, I was in my car at lunch and I heard a song on the radio - a song that when I hear it, such a vivid memory comes to mind of having heard it before. So, then I started thinking about other songs that do that to me and before I knew it, I had my list of 10!

Most of these aren't my favorite songs - they are just songs that, as Brad Paisley says, take me back.

1. Don't Take the Girl/Tim McGraw - this is the one I heard yesterday. When I hear it, I go back to my grandmother's kitchen with my childhood best friend, Emily. I can so vividly remember sitting there one Wednesday before church and Emily was telling my mom and me about this song (we had not yet heard it). She recited it in such a storybook manner that I really saw what was happening in the song. We had to have been in middle school.

2. Baby Got Back/Sir Mixalot - I go back to my locker in the hallway at Dent Middle School. I remember standing there trying to open my locker (which I always had trouble with) and just singing this song. I was in 6th grade. I shudder to think about the fact that I had this song memorized. I don't think I really knew what I was singing.

3. Drift Away/Uncle Kracker - I go back to my Mazda Navajo sitting in the driveway at Doug's parent's house. We were on what had to be our 7000th date and he hadn't yet kissed me. We sat in the car talking forever that night - so long that this song came on twice! Eventually, I got a kiss!

4. Run Around/Blues Traveler - I go back to my first night "going out" in high school. It was the night I turned 15 and I went out with some girl friends. One girl was a junior so she could drive at night - the rest of us were sophomores. This song came on the radio and I remember all 4 of us singing it at the top of our lungs!

5. Roll With it Baby/Steve Winwood - I go back to a water slide at North Myrtle Beach. Back in the day, it cost $3 to spend the whole day there so my brother and I went there at least one day while we were on vacation each year. I remember this song coming on and singing it - but I apparently had the words wrong. I actually thought it was a commercial for a local car dealership called Bob Bennett Ford. I thought the song said Bob Bennett Baby. But my brother quickly corrected me by pointing out that it would be stupid for a Columbia car dealership to have an ad on at the beach. (I still don't really even know what song it truly was.)

6. It Won't Be Like This for Long/Darius Rucker - I go back to Thanksgiving Day in 2008 very early in the morning feeding Katie. She was less than 2 weeks old and I was having a really hard time adjusting. I was upstairs in the bonus room by myself feeding her and watching the Macy's Parade. Darius Rucker was on a float singing this song and it felt like he was singing right to me. I cried my eyes out knowing that even though he was singing to cherish these moments, etc because time goes so fast, I felt comforted by the fact that my feelings of sadness/post partum wouldn't last for long either.

7. Trading My Sorrows/Darrel Evans - I go back to the old sanctuary at Shandon on the Sunday after 9/11. No one knew how to go about worship during a time of shock and despair. However, it turned into one of the single most profound worship experiences I have ever had. We sang this song and it talked about being "struck down, but not destroyed." It had such power that morning to remind us that God was there through this trial for our country and his joy needed to be our strength at the moment.

8. I Wanna Dance With Somebody/Whitney Houston - I go back to a family reunion with the Higgins side of my family. We always had talent shows at these reunions and somehow I thought that lip singing this song was just enough talent to enter the show. I practiced and practiced and even choreographed some dance moves. I got my hair french braided for the performance (a big deal) and rocked it out. I think I sort of forgot to lip sing it - I ended up belting it out and that DEFINITELY was not talent as I am one of the worst singers ever.

9. What a Girl Wants/Christina Aguilera - I go back to my Mazda Navajo again on my way home from a coaches meeting for a soccer team I was coaching. It was also the day after Valentine's Day and I had just been broken up with. I was heading to my apartment and listening to the "High 5 at 10" on WNOK. This song was #1 that night and my roommate and I loved the song! I was pulling into my parking space, ready to run upstairs and turn the song on in the apartment so we could sing and enjoy my new singleness. As I was heading to our building, I got mugged and assaulted in the parking lot and never got to hear the end of the song.

10. Fast Car/Tracy Chapman - I go back to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. It was my senior year of college and I got to visit Australia to see family as an early graduation present from my parents. I went to the beach just about every day for the month I was there. I had an MP3 player that held a whopping 16 songs! This song was one of them and I remember having it stuck on repeat for over an hour one day. I listened to it over and over and soaked up the rays on the most beautiful beach I've ever seen!