eMusic has a charming piece wherein a number of musicians of varying notoriety reveal their different first crushes. We find out that Laura Ballance of Superchunk had things for James West of The Wild, Wild West, Robin, The Black Stallion, and Han Solo (as well she should have); Julian Koster of Music Tapes and Neutral Milk Hotel crushed out on a model of the city of Manhattan. And then there’s Sam Bisbee, who taught himself Kiss’ “Beth” in honor of a girl… named Beth:
My first crush was in 3rd grade. Her name was Beth Raymond, and she was also in the 3rd grade. I learned how to sing the song “Beth” by KISS, and I brought my little cassette player (monophonic) to school and stood in front of her and sang the song along with the track. This was before John Cusack did the same kind of thing in Say Anything. To put it bluntly, Beth was non-plussed, and didn’t seem to understand why 9 year-olds had any need for a significant other. So that was the end of it. I moved from Providence to Boston the next year. That wasn’t just my first crush, but my first live music performance - so it was all for the best. And “Beth” is still a great song.
Here is where I admit that I’m a tad girl crazy and am celebrating my 28th year or so (with some years semi-off for marriage and the like) of harboring futile, unrequited loves. One of my biggest early crushes revolved around a song—Steve Winwood’s final goodbye to credibility “Higher Love.”
Lynn—last name unknown–-was in my swimming class at the Auburn Junior High School pool circa 1986. Funny that I don’t remember much about her now, but I know that she was taller than me, which is itself not much of an achievement. (I didn’t break five feet until I was 15 or 16.) She was leggy and slender, and the fact that we spent our short time together in bathing suits made an impression on me. She was two years older and about to go to high school, while I was preparing to plunge headfirst into the hell that was to be junior high.
I can’t recall what it was about her that made me like her so much—probably just the fact that she talked to me at all and was, quite visibly, on her way to womanhood. I ran home the first day of swim class, looked up her last name in the phone book (remember those?), found out where she lived, and made it my mission to stalk her. The next day, “Higher Love” by Steve Winwood came on the radio, and she said, “Ooh, I love that song,” and so I added learning “Higher Love” by Steve Winwood on some musical instrument to the mission parameters. I bought it on cassingle and listened to it over and over on one of those old one-speaker cassette players on which you record fake radio shows with your sister. I rode my bike to her neighborhood numerous times after swim class, unbeknownst to my parents who would have flipped out at the thought of me riding the four miles or so just to get there.
I had dreams of her catching me puttering around outside her house on my six year-old Huffy with coaster brakes. She would come outside and say “What are you doing here?” and I would say something suave like “I was just in the neighborhood,” which was a total lie, and then she would invite me into the house where I would play her “Higher Love” on whatever instrument it was that I learned it on, and then I would probably get to first or even second base, though, to be honest, I’m still not sure what bases mean which prurient act. I must have ridden my bike out there five times and conspicuously circled her neighborhood for an hour or so, humming Steve Winwood under my breath. Turns out she didn’t even live there anymore. Her family had moved to a neighboring town earlier that summer, but they didn’t want to waste the money they’d already paid on the class. I heard her tell someone this on the last day, which was also the same day that I muttered “I love you” to her under my breath, but I don’t think she heard it.
Anyway, the first song I ever learned to play on the piano was “Higher Love.” Coincidence? Maybe. (The chords aren’t very hard.) But now that I’ve opened up to y’all—I don’t know that I’ve ever told anybody about Lynn!—I have to ask: What songs have you learned in the name of love? The more embarrassing the better, obviously.
Mine was in kindergarten; Mandy Myers was her name. (Later, when we were in junior high she used to tease me about it, which was annoying–it wasn’t as if the feelings had carried over time.) My mom used to play “Mandy” by Barry Manilow in my honor. So I’ve hated Barry Manilow, I can honestly say, since kindergarten.
@Michaelangelo Matos: Every Mandy I’ve ever known has hated that song with a purple passion. My most hated things were “Luka” by Suzanne Vega and the move Lucas, which I now like okay.
in the 5th grade my best friend and i were both in love with the same girl, alicia. our brilliant plan was to sing the entirety of a.b.c.’s “aiesha” to her (find/replacing aiesha with alicia of course) at a friend’s b-day party and then to allow her to decide which fine young gentleman she would date (i’m not sure if neither was ever discussed as an option). so we practiced and choreographed and shit, and then of course both chickened out. he eventually went out with her for about a minute, and i was soon told by my mother that i wasn’t allowed to date anyone until high school. which is too bad because i was way more charming in grade school.
Oh man, this is brutal. 5th Grade, and my first year at a new school. It was a dubious parochial school my parents made me go to, and I was immediately the ‘weird new kid.’ Needless to say, I didn’t have many friends, and it sucked. Until SHE came along. She was a mid-year transfer, and she was super-cute. She also shared my love of music, and we immediately bonded as the two weird new kids that talked about music all of the time.
I of course had a MAJOR crush on her, but was too young/dumb to do anything about it. Towards the end of the school year, she said she had a gift for me. I could tell it was a vinyl single underneath the wrapping. When I opened it, I discovered a well-worn copy of Olivia Newton-John’s “Make A Move on Me” that she’d stolen from her mom’s collection. I could have DIED. We held hands and decided to be boyfriend/girlfriend.
But before anything could happen, her parents decided it was time to move again at the end of the year. We both cried and held hands and promised to stay in touch forever. It was the last time we would ever see/talk to each other again.
Wow, I haven’t thought about that one in forever. Sniff…
Oh man, this is brutal. 5th Grade, and my first year at a new school. It was a dubious parochial school my parents made me go to, and I was immediately the ‘weird new kid.’ Needless to say, I didn’t have many friends, and it sucked. Until SHE came along. She was a mid-year transfer, and she was super-cute. She also shared my love of music, and we immediately bonded as the two weird new kids that talked about music all of the time.
I of course had a MAJOR crush on her, but was too young/dumb to do anything about it. Towards the end of the school year, she said she had a gift for me. I could tell it was a vinyl single underneath the wrapping. When I opened it, I discovered a well-worn copy of Olivia Newton-John’s “Make A Move on Me” that she’d stolen from her mom’s collection. I could have DIED. We held hands and decided to be boyfriend/girlfriend.
But before anything could happen, her parents decided it was time to move again at the end of the year. We both cried and held hands and promised to stay in touch forever. It was the last time we would ever see/talk to each other again.
Wow, I haven’t thought about that one in forever. Sniff…
In high school, me and every guy who could sing and play guitar learned “To Be With You” by Mr. Big because it actually made girls sigh, like a bad 50s sitcom. I can still sing it, and I think of at least 5 girls it was aimed at…
I married a girl named Mandi and I’m threatened with divorce every time I mention the Manilow tune. Those girls really fucking hat that song…
Back when I was stilll a guitar slinging bachelor, my go to song for spreadin’ the thighs was “Some Girls” which worked on…some girls. Not the ones you would want it to, but some of the other ones…
Me in fourth grade, turning the jumprope for the girl I liked:
“I totally like Rick Springfield! ‘Jesse’s Girl’ is a cool song!”
I haven’t stopped turning the jumprope for girls since.
Nautical Disaster by The Tragically Hip.
I bought it on cassingle and listened to it over and over on one of those old one-speaker cassette players
This whole story — the crush, etc. — happened in 1986, when the song was first a hit, right?
I ask because the cassingle was launched in the U.S., as a format, in 1987. The first commercially available cassingle was Bryan Adams’s “Heat of the Night.” So you couldn’t have bought “Higher Love” on cassingle in 1986. Maybe you bought the Back in the High Life cassette?
See, this is why you keep chart-geeking assholes like me around: to ruin your childhood memories and miss the point of your heartfelt stories.
(Oh, and: songs and girls. Yeah, I could go on. I have a heartbreaker involving When in Rome’s “The Promise” that makes the last scene of Napoleon Dynamite more poignant for me than it probably should be.)
@whoneedslight: @Lucas Jensen: No, there’s a lot wrong with “Right Here Waiting,” and I’m no better than anyone: I had experiences with both a crush and an actual girlfriend in 1989 that revolved around that song. (The crush told me not to quote that song to her, the girlfriend loved it.) It makes my skin crawl just thinking about it…
@Chris Molanphy:
We didn’t date, did we? ; )
@Chris Molanphy: I slow-danced with a girl in front of my car’s headlights in a field to “Wonderful Tonight”. It worked.
@Lucas Jensen: Man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do, etc.
@Chris Molanphy: It could have been 1987…that’s why I said circa. But I’m pretty sure I just had a cassingle. It had some old stuff on it, too, like “Valerie”, I think, maybe live? I got it at Record Bar. I DID have the album, too, but that came later…maybe it didn’t. The reason this sticks in my brain is that I never had many cassingles or even cassettes. My dad got a CD player in 1987, and I skipped over cassettes for CDs, except when I dubbed stuff and made mixes. I had “Fool In The Rain” by Led Zeppelin (b-side “Hot Dog”…yuck!), which was the only tape I had with me for a 20 hour bus ride in Brasil one year. I also had a number of GnR tapes for the b-sides and live material. But I never really had many of them because the Record Bar and Sound Shop were always selling 45s at deep discounts at that point, and that was the way to go.
Hmmm…I think I have it back home, so I will try to dig it up! But the key here is that it was definitely on the radio, and I definitely purchased a cassingle of it. This would have been in July or August, I think. Like I said, it could have been 1987. That song was around on radio for a long time. Still is. I have an American Top 40 tape somewhere from the week where Venus by Banarama (WTF) went number one. I can’t remember if that was the same year, though I know both songs were jamming that summer.
@galactus5000: I hope that you and Susan are doing alright. It’s out there most days and nights, after all.
@galactus5000: So you’re Canadian?
Higher Love is a really good song.
I can’t think of any songs I specifically associate with crushes before my first long-term BF (which happened when I was seventeen, and ‘our song’ was Suffocated Love by Tricky for some reason that probably seemed funny at the time.) No, wait, I definitely remember in fifth grade re-writing lyrics from Amy Grant’s Heart In Motion album to make them about a girl named Kim. I don’t remember which song, though.
I’m embarrassed to even type the words. Right. Here. Waiting.
@bcapirigi: I still like it.
@whoneedslight: Nothing wrong with that.