The Album: Lullaby Book of Love
The Story: Back during the '80s, one of the radio stations would do Open House Party on the weekends. I loved it because it usually featured a lot of music not played in regular rotation. I'm not 100% certain about this, but I think that's how I first hear Book of Love.
I DO know that the first song was the "Tubular Bells/Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls" mix. I'd seen The Exorcist when I was a very little kid and it terrified me. The fact that a band would take that theme music, turn it into a dance song, and tie it into late 80s polyamory just tickled me to pieces. In my head, this was always what Lestat would dance to at clubs while Louis sat sulking in the corner.
Is Lullaby the world's deepest album? Nah. I kind of love it for that. In all of my teen angst, this was the album that lifted my spirits. Just dance synthpop with a witchy edge. What more could you want?
Speaking of witchy.....this album has "Witchcraft" on it. Three vocals, speaking alone and sometimes together, casting a spell that is part herblore, part jump rope chant, and part homage to stories about witches. The chorus is a singsong listing of witches from "Bewitched."
Unapologetic praise is given to witches who stole the menzes. Years later, when I finally started watching the reruns of Dark Shadows, I was so thrilled to finally understand the "Angelique takes Barnabas from Josette" part.
I've always loved it when art does that. Our collective culture of stories, songs, and characters has become its own kind of shorthand language. Most people get it when you refer to someone as 'the Ron Weasley of the group.' As much as I encourage people to create new things (and they should! stop doing remakes people), referencing other parts of culture acceptable because it's part of the complexity of our communication process.
Thank you to: Thanks to the powers that be at whatever radio station that was who decided to play Open House Party.
The Lesson Learned: If you'll notice, my last several posts have been calmer. Nothing dangerous. Nothing dramatic. This is because my life was really good at this time.
Safe from my mother's chaos, I was able to just be a normal(ish) teenager. I talked on the phone all the time. I thrived in school. I had plans. I wrote absurdist plays. I was in an absurdist band (we never played any gigs or practiced with instruments. We just wrote songs, created strange dance moves, and chanted our lyrics to each other). I was happy.
The problem was I didn't realize I was happy. I was too busy focusing on the things I didn't have or the relationship not being what I wanted it to be or any number of other minor details that really didn't matter when compared to the fact that I was safe, secure, and creative.
Maybe part of this was my mental chemical imbalance, but more than that, I think it was just flawed thought patterns. Even though I'd learned to survive the terrifying moments of life, I'd yet to learn to live inside of the good moments. For a long time, I thought high school was awful because I just looked at it from the perspective of what I didn't have, instead of seeing all that I did.
These days, though admittedly not always with success, I try to recognize the good stuff going on. Yeah, there is still bad stuff too, but I refuse to let that rule me. The sweet may be something we taste on rare occasion. so why not savor it instead of just dreading the next bite of bitter?
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