by wildangels

It’s no secret I love music. It’s an amazing artistic medium and a great way to express yourself. It can also be pretty therapeutic. There’s one more thing I love about it... it’s power to bring back a moment in time so clearly just by hearing it. I have many songs that can remind me of certain events and one of them is, kind of embarrassingly, Richard Marx.

It was the late 80's and his hit "Right Here Waiting" was just released and blowing up. At the same time, I was traveling with a family member to visit some friends out of state. If you know me, you know I don’t even go a ten minute car ride without a radio or tape playing and this was definitely no exception. Not far into the trip, however, I was ready to toss the radio right out of that car.

When I say "Right Here Waiting" exploded, I am not kidding. After hearing it about 20 times pretty close together, we got tired of it and tried to find something else. No matter what station we put it on or what time, that song was playing. We’d change the station to get away from it, only to hear it starting somewhere else. Change it again, and we’d find the song starting again or part way through it. Finally, we gave up on the whole thing and I got out some of my tapes to listen to. To this day, if that song comes on the radio I think about that trip. I remember playing with the other kids and making up dance routines together.... getting to visit the Ripley’s Museum and the Fountain of Youth.... even swinging off a tire in their front yard and how big the property was. All of this, I remember in vivid detail, like it’s happening right now.

That’s the real power of music.