Instead of choosing a song that reminds me of Memphis, I’ve decided instead to pick a song that reminds me of my family home. In particular, this song reminds me of waking up on Sunday mornings and getting ready for church in my childhood and young-adult years.
Mine has always been a church-going family. In fact, my father was a preacher for some time in my youth and so I was, and I think I will always remain, a PK. We were Nazarenes, a Protestant Christian denomination on the holiness side of the 19thC Wesleyan realignment. On the positive side, that meant I grew up in a tight-knit congregation of believers in grace, in the power of spiritual healing, and around a lot of amazing music, On the considerably less-positive side, that meant I grew up in a very socially- and politically-conservative world where the “wages of sin” were never metaphorical.
I’ve always associated Sunday mornings with music. Not just church music, an obvious association given my upbringing, but also the music we listened to in the house as we all scrambled around to get ready for church. Fortunately for me, my parents have excellent taste in music, which I would generically describe as a very baby-boomerish preference for “classic rock,” but with a decided bent toward the soulful, Motown-y end of that spectrum.
[An aide: Contrary to what one sometimes hears on “classic rock” radio stations today, “classic rock” does not refer to any pop song that is more than 20 years old. For example, Pearl Jam is not now, never was, and never will be “classic rock.” There is a broadly-identifiable sound that emerged in pop music of the 1960s and 70s that defines classic rock– mostly anthemic, mostly guitar-driven, mostly formulaic– and remains, for white people anyway, the sonic equivalent of “nostalgia,” whether they lived through those years or not.]
Anyway, this is a “classic rock” song that reminds me of home. It’s Three Dog Night‘s “Joy To The World”:
According to my mom, if someone asked us to sing “Joy To The World” when we were kids, my siblings and I were far more likely to belt out Jeremiah was a bullfrog! than to announce that the Lord had come and earth should receive her King. That story still cracks me up.
Click here to return to the “anchor page” for #30DaySongChallenge2016 with the full list of this year’s picks