The 1980s hit \u201cYou\u2019re the Inspiration\u201d makes me think of metallic streamers, balloon arches, and poorly permed hair, and that is precisely why I sent my sister an 80s music mix for her birthday this week. It\u2019s a nice way to celebrate your thirty-something birthday, don\u2019t you think? My children are thrilled with my foray into the cool music of my teens. My three-year-old now runs around singing \u201cHighway to the Danger Zone\u201d; my eleven-year-old has announced that \u201cSummer of \u201869\u201d is \u201cawesome\u201d; and my thirteen-year-old believes a number of the songs are \u201cscandalous,\u201d which I will respond to as soon as I learn whether that word is a compliment or disparagement.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, I must confess to all my young women\u2019s leaders that, despite not hearing most of these songs in the last twenty years, I can still sing every single word. Yes, you told me that the lyrics would get in my head and be recorded there. Apparently you were right. Then there\u2019s the emotional backwash: all I need is the first four measures of REO Speedwagon\u2019s \u201cI Can\u2019t Fight This Feeling Anymore\u201d to be hearing, seeing, and smelling a Stake Dance in all its tangled, teenage glory (Is he looking<\/em> at me? How do I look? Stupid?).<\/p>\n Of course, things are different now. When I hear, \u201cRelax\/ Don\u2019t do it\/ When you want to go to it,\u201d I blush. Because now\u2014unlike then\u2014I have a bit of an idea what I am singing about. In my teens, I had a clue, too, but only because I was socially savvy enough to know that when those<\/em> people liked the song and those <\/em>people thought it was immoral, then the lyrics probably had to do with (ahem) it<\/em>. But I didn\u2019t really know what I was singing about. I had no idea.<\/p>\n Take \u201cKyrie,\u201d for instance. One of my favorites. My sister and I would belt that out at the top of our lungs while zipping down the hill to high school in our red land cruiser and praying to find the last parking space by the seminary building. Hearing the song last week sparked a memory of reading that word in a book not too long ago, so I googled it. Now I know: all those years when I was singing, \u201cKyrie lays along the road that I must follow\u201d and thinking that \u201cKyrie\u201d was a nice name for a girl? Yeah. I was singing it wrong. Try this:<\/p>\n \u201cKyrie Eleison, the road that I must travel.\/ Kyrie Eleison, through the darkness of the night.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKyrie Eleison.\u201d That would be Greek for \u201cLord have mercy,\u201d though I didn\u2019t know it until twenty-four hours ago. It\u2019s possible that I was the most incredibly na\u00efve and unintelligent girl in school, but I have a feeling that no one else in my small town knew Greek that well, either. Some probably had the lyrics on the back of the record albums, but there was no googling back in the 1980s, so I doubt seeing the words helped them out that much. I only heard the song on the radio over and over again and sang along with what I thought the words were. I can\u2019t think of one time that the words influenced me for good or somehow helped me choose the right\u2014because I didn\u2019t know what I was singing about. Now, knowing what it means, I find it quite moving; understanding brings me to contemplation, and that contemplation will perhaps influence my actions some.<\/p>\n So do lyrics influence malleable teens? Probably. But how much? Despite the fact that I \u201cknew\u201d every word to the hit songs of the 80s, I had no idea what they meant and probably sang the wrong words most of the time anyway. I\u2019m wondering how much such words could influence me. I don\u2019t want to make the argument that I should let my teenagers listen to whatever they want. That seems to be trusting moral safety to innate innocence, and that is ludicrous. But I\u2019m pretty sure that bemoaning and bewailing the horrid lyrics of modern music is a sure way to tip off nice teenagers; now they know they\u2019re singing something scandalous . . . even if they don\u2019t understand what they know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 1980s hit \u201cYou\u2019re the Inspiration\u201d makes me think of metallic streamers, balloon arches, and poorly permed hair,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn","category-parenting"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8648,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8647\/revisions\/8648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}