At The Barbecue: First Favorite Song

Saxilla: The first song I remember really WANTING to hear on the radio (back in the days of listening to the radio) was Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run. I have a very fond memory of being in the back of my parents’ car and hearing it come on the radio. Band On The Run was just the coolest thing my young ears had ever heard. That epic opening, culminating with the “crash” and then out of nowhere the song kicks in. I still love Band on the Run, and it always makes me think of that day and being in the “way back” of my Dad’s Chevy Citation hatchback.

Some Dude: Let’s set the scene: it’s 1984, I’m eight years old and the recipient of a brand new Fisher-Price record player – I can still remember tan and brown plastic. So what album would any hip eight year-old would want spinning on his hi-fi? Well, none other then the sophomore effort by one Alfred Matthew Yankovic, that’s Weird Al to all you folks not in the know, called In 3-D.

The song that I fell in love with, and that I undoubtedly identify as my first favorite, was none other than the hit single off the album – Eat It. Yes, my first favorite song was indeed a song parody. I’m not really sure about how, when, and why (probably because it was the height of Michael Jackson-mania); but I was mildly obsessed with it. Plus, the fact that the album came with 3-D glasses had me sold. Part of me wishes that I could have fessed up to something cooler, but hey I guess in some odd way I was digging something that wasn’t the mainstream – well at least that’s how I’ll spin it now anyway.

Wardy: With an older brother in the house, you get pretty used to regular beatings, awkward family photos and hand-me-down clothes. But you also get an earlier taste of rock ‘n roll compared to your ‘only child’ friends and god forbid, friends with a gaggle of older sisters. In ‘79/80, when I was an energetic kid in knee-patched wranglers and velour striped turtlenecks, my brother was hitting his early teens and blasting his new vinyl copies of Pink Floyd’s epic The Wall, and AC/DC’s timeless Back in Black.

Songs about rebellion and hating teachers and misguided authority figures were the perfect gateway into a life eventually devoted to music discovery. Though nothing blew me away like the title-track to Bob Seger’s #1 album released that year, Against The Wind. Yes, my melodrama began at a very early age, as the lyrics of an upward struggle, love lost, loneliness and reflections on a lifetime full of pain were not exactly aligned with my barely seven year existence in a sheltered suburban cul-de-sac. But I played that vinyl 45 on my plastic phonograph as loud as that crappy static-filled mono-speaker would go and wallowed in self-pity. Ahhh, to be young again….

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Eliot Glazer: My very first favorite song was How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) as covered by James Taylor. I was raised in a moderately hippie household where Carole King, James Taylor and Carly Simon were in constant rotation. My dad did his best to squeeze in some Zappa and classic jazz, but I was a very nervous child, so easy listening was my only way to go. Luckily for my reputation, my record collection has amassed almost as much Miles Davis and Oscar Peterson as James Taylor albums (all of which continue to sound the same, although I’m totally cool with it).

Rupert: Unlike Wardy’s good fortune of having an older brother, I grew up under the influence of a big sis. If I wasn’t subjected to being forced into redial duty on the phone in hopes of hitting the request line for a Material Girl on the local radio station, I was assisting in composing fan letters to Michael J. Fox. Thus, you can understand that when Back to the Future came out, it pretty much blew my mind. I thought that Marty McFly was cooler than David Lee Roth and Michael Jackson combined.

The result of this fascination was an undeniable love for the soundtrack’s hit tune from the one and only Huey Lewis and the News: the Power of Love. The obsession was strong. We are talking about sitting in the car waiting to hear it on camping trips, making my dad haul me behind the car on a skateboard, and waiting by the boom box with my fingers simultaneously glued to play and record buttons. While it’s easy to look back and laugh at old ways, the Power of Love has stood the test of time. Because to this day, I still love that song.

Scotty: When I was four, my dad took me to Nichols’ department store to buy my first record player. He wanted to get me a Sesame Street LP, but I had a different idea. I proceeded to tear apart the singles section looking for a copy of Joey Scarbury’s Believe It or Not. The theme from TV’s The Greatest American Hero had been stuck in my head for a while, and I finally wanted to own my own copy. My dad regretted letting me buy that 45, because I spent the next three weeks playing it over and over again.

So, we showed you ours, let’s see some of yours…

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21 Responses

  1. “sucking down a variety of tube steaks”? that’s what she said…

    Anyhoo- “I love a rainy night” eddie rabbitt (age of 4)

  2. I had a Star Wars record (or maybe it was a space themed Sesame Street record? Can’t remember) Whatever it was, it had Elton John’s Rocket Man on it and I loved that one. My dad would also play Eli’s Coming (original Nyro version) for me pretty regularly which I enjoyed quite a bit.

  3. My first real entrance into Rock & Roll was my brother’s Beatles Tapes and I think ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ was probably my first “favorite song”

  4. big fan of King Louie’s song, when I was a little kid, however my first “favorite song”, once I looked at music in a whole new way, was Telegraph Road.

  5. my first favorite song was Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers. My family would have 45 night, and this is the first song I remember loving (when I was 4 or 5 years old). My first musical love has since been ruined by WalMart

  6. Tough call on what my first fav might have been, but I clearly recall a poll being taken in my 3rd grade class, to which I responded that Black Dog was my favorite song.
    Seeing as Ghost in the Machine was the first tape I ever bought with my own money, I think “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” might have been the actual first.

  7. Spending a short time in Tennessee, I started out really liking country music. My first favorite was either, “The Closer You Get” – Alabama, or “All My Exes Live in Texas”-George Straight. Did I just admit this to the interwebs? shudders.

  8. it’s hard to say but i guess “Cum on Feel the Noise” by Quiet Riot.

    Metal Health was the first album I bought with “my own” money.

  9. Althought I have only vague memories of this, I used to hound my older brothers to play Stinkfoot by Frank Zappa over and over again.

    Oh, and now I will be singing “..believe it or nor it’s just meee..” for the next week.

  10. when we was fab, by george harrison. cloud nine was in my parent’s casette player for months when i was 6.

  11. The Wanderer by Dion I think.

    My mom always played doo wop in my crib. She also got me into Floyd, Elvis, David Bowie, Johnny Cash, etc.

    She was hip for an immigrant.

  12. first song to memorize all the words to? Easy–Dukes of hazzard theme song. I think my mom still has a tape of me singing that which she will use as blackmail for any future fiance/wife and/or children.

  13. TechnoTronics’s “Make My Day” was actually, my first notable, favorite song in my lifetime.

    my mom said I also whistled the “Dallas” TV show theme alot too.

    ‘Ohhh-a-waaa, a place to stay; get your booty on the blah-blah-blah, make my day. make my day.”

  14. (half of that got cut!)

    singing the ‘wooooooo-ooooooooo-whooooa-oh’ part over and over again.

    what a surprise. the song still rocks though. 🙂

  15. My aunt, 7 years older, gave me my first 45 at age 5 – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones, which was halfway wore out by the time I got it. I wore it all the way through. I’d walk around saying “a hey hey hey, that’s what I say.” It was backed with the kitschy “Under Assistant West Coast Promo Man” (“Sittin’ here thinking, just how sharp I am . . . I’m sharp, I’m real real sharp, yes I am”) which I don’t think ever made it to LP.

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