31 Days of The 31 Years Soundtrack: Reality Check

Let's skip ahead a bit to just after college. I had graduated, finished up an internship, and upon not finding a job completed another internship over summer and had moved home while I searched for a job. It was a frustrating time in my young adult life. I hadn't planned to move back to Houston, and certain hadn't planned to live with my parents after college. And yet, that's where I found myself. It was hard, but looking back, I can say it was the best thing for us all.

However, at the time, I needed some space and I needed to do something. Nashville Star, a reality show that was for all intents and purposes American Idol with a twang, was holding auditions in Austin. I booked a hotel, drove myself up to the capitol, checked in the night before auditions, slept for a fistful of hours, woke up and 3am and walked myself down to auditions through downtown Austin. I met a couple of guys on the way who clearly had been lubricating their vocal chords with some liquid courage in preparation for the audition. I waited in line for hours. I met Katie and we became great friends for those few moments. We even past the time by taking selfies. This is all pre-iphone, mind you.

There was a tornado warning for the area which made things interesting, but eventually we made it inside. From there we were put in groups of 5 or 6 and eventually ushered into a small room with a panel of what I assume were interns or some lower level job...you don't start out in front of the actual judges. You have to work your way to that. One at a time we were to step forward, tell them our name and what song we were singing. We then had 30 seconds to sing. We were allowed to play guitar as well.

I spent weeks deciding what song to sing. The first couple of crooners sang and then it was my turn. I stepped forward and played and sang. The "judges" then asked me to sing it again without the guitar. I paused, maybe too long. I was honestly processing the fact that it had to be a good sign if they wanted to hear it twice. But there was one more girl after me and they kept her. They were only keeping one from each group, if any. A couple of the others from the room encouraged me as we left, assuring me that they should have kept me. I was flattered and wished they had, but the girl they kept was good.

On my way back to the hotel to get my car and head home, one of my new friends from the line journey offered to give me a ride back to my car. Y'all, I don't know what possessed me to get in the car with this guy I'd only known for a few hours and whom was tipsy at 5am, but I did. He told me about his night, which was not like any night I've ever had or want to have, he told me he thought the judges were idiots because clearly he and I both should be on the show, and he dropped me off at my hotel and I haven't seen him, or Katie, since. But for a day, we were buds.

I think about that day often. It was the first risk I think I'd ever taken. It was my first adventure on my own. I was nervous but I loved it. I loved knowing I could go somewhere, I could arrange the details of something like that without my parents. It was small, easy, but it was new to me. I loved spending an entire day with like-minded people, singing, dreaming, sharing stories. I did it all again a couple of years later when I auditioned for The Voice. Both experiences were great but Nashville Star was one of those moments, where you suddenly realize you can do more than you give yourself credit for. The world, as scary as it can be, really isn't that vast.

I don't listen to country much anymore, mostly because country doesn't exist these days (it's all pop). Still, country music provided the soundtrack for so much of my life and this particular memory is accompanied by "Suds in The Bucket" by Sara Evans.

31 Days of The 31 Years Soundtrack: An Irish Blessing

While we are talking about high school, I felt we should address choir. I was a choir kid from early on and there are a few songs I thought about sharing with you. Second runner up was from elementary school. We sang a song called "Show Me How" and learned the sign language. I still have bits of that song the run through my mind at times. But there was one song that plays a little louder and  little longer in the choral section of my mental music library.

Our high school choir was made up of misfits. We weren't necessarily disliked but we just didn't fit in the big scheme of things. Actually, the first day of high school, I went to study hall with all the choir kids and I was a little concerned. I mean, it was almost straight from The Breakfast Club minus the jock. We had all the other roles covered and then some. The funny thing is, we weren't really friends outside of that choir room. A few were. But once we stepped into that room, once we opened our mouths to make music together, something happened. We loved each other well inside the walls of our little corner classroom. We encouraged and challenged and laughed together. And we made memories. And we marked those memories with a song. It was tradition. Actually, I'm not sure we even sung it even for the four years I was there, but somehow, it is still ingrained as tradition. It holds the weight of being that one constant that helped us remember that even if we played the game of high school the rest of the time, when we stood side by side and sang, we were together. We were a family.  A family of oddballs and misfits, but a family nonetheless.

It was hard to find any recording of this song, but eventually I did. Here it is, our concert closer, sung here by "Things with Strings".

May The Road Rise Up To Meet You

May the road rise up to meet you

May the wind be always at your back

May the sun shine warm upon your face

And the rains fall soft upon your fields

Until we meet again my friend

Until we meet again

May God hold you in the palm of his hand

31 Days of The 31 Years Soundtrack: Slow Jams

There are many methods to storytelling. You can start in the logical place, the beginning and walk straight down the plot line...not really my style. You can start at the end and unravel it back to where it all began. Or, you can create an intricate web of a story with flashbacks and flash forwards, reminiscent of poor Jack's life on the Island(Lost). Keep the audience on their toes. Since we are taking a journey through the soundtrack, it may not be quite as suspenseful, but that is our flight path...in other words, we are going to be jumping around. 

I've decided to start at the part of the story where music suddenly becomes the fodder for awkward social interaction. Go with me now to the school gym. White tile floor, white concrete walls, scowling viking overlooking the hormonal charades beneath him. Yes my friends, we are at a middle school dance. Girls on one side of the room, boys on the other. Boys, having yet to hit that growth spurt, at the perfect hight to make eye contact with your chest. Girls, trying to balance in their heels along the thin wire between impressing the crush or the popular girls.  Sweat drenching the poor silk shirts that seemed like a great wardrobe choice before the first song. Cologne drenching...well, everything else. 

It's easy to survive the Macarena and YMCA. Those songs come with instructions of what to do with your hands. But, inevitably, the tables turn to the slow jams. Suddenly, there is a sandstorm of shuffling feet. Some trying to find their way off the dance floor as quickly as possible. Others shuffling along the sidelines waiting, hoping to be asked to dance. And others, having gained courage, shuffling to-and-fro, to-and-fro beneath locked knees. 

There are a few specific moments I can recall of from school dances. 

In middle school: The mean girl making it a point to let me know the boys in her grade would not be dancing with me. Learning that the boy who had just asked me to be his girlfriend the day before, and whom I had refused, had started "dating" another girl. I asked him why he was dating her(she was kind of mean) and his response was "because you said no." This logic baffled me. I remember the dress I wore to my very first dance. It was black and white and I had braided my hair. An older girl, making fun of me, called me Dorothy. I did not see the insult in that... *shrug*. I remember a girl lying to me about crying in the bathroom..."allergies" apparently. 

And in high school: I remember taking Dan Savage to homecoming and feeling really special even though we were only friends and he was really more my brother's friend. I remember standing by myself at a dance my junior year and feeling awkward and alone until my middle school crush, then good friend, came and asked me to dance. He told me I looked like Cinderella. He even twirled me, y'all. I remember terrible dresses that I thought were gorgeous and glamorous at the time. I remember wishing guys would be braver and kinder and ask girls to dance without wondering if it would cause us to fall in love with them. I remember being determined to have fun with or without a date. 

And I remember one song in particular. I think it was actually played at every single school dance I ever attended. It was recorded by two artist so I'm sure that helped it stay in the DJ arsenal for awhile. It was the ultimate ballad. A declaration of love that every girl would dream of hearing from the boy that sat three desks away in Chemistry. Country music or r&b, this was the jam. So, let me not keep you waiting any longer. Grab that special someone and dance like you have no idea what to do with your hands. 

For the country fans:

For the R&B fans: