That up there stands for “Music I grew up with that taught me stuff about life”. Everybody does specific things on specific days (positive post Tuesday, etc) so this is my thing on a day.

Have you ever sat back and thought about how much music you have listened to during your life? Think about it for a second. Everyday in the car, at work, in the gym, doing housework, everywhere. Even if it is only background music. I have literally spent thousands of hours listening to music during my life time. And to tell you the truth, it has taught me more about life than I have ever realized. I think Nick Hornby said it best in his book High Fidelity (which is probably my favorite non-Harry Potter book, you all should read it):

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

Seriously! The music we listen too influences our lives more than we know. I did drugs for the first time with Eric Clapton when I was 5. I fell in love for the first time with Cheap Trick. I wanted someone to want me, even if I didn’t have any idea what it meant. I got my heart broken for the first time with poor old Meatloaf, who would probably actually do anything for love. I learned how to laugh at myself by listening to Less Than Jake and the Aquabats. I learned how to be awesome by listening to The Eagles. Music has influenced my life in a hugely profound way, and I am not even a musician.

So here is the song I want to talk about today. “Jack and Diane” by John Cougar Mellencamp (just John Cougar at that point). It’s off the album American Fool from 1982, two years before I was born. This song is an American classic. It’s a nice little tune and it’s catchy, and you wanna sing it, but if you listen harder, you get the quintessential American story buried someplace in there. Two kids in high school fall in love, mess around behind a Tastee Freeze, apparently, get married, grow up, and realize that their 16 year old dreams are probably never going to come true. Sounds terribly depressing, I know.

But how true to life is it? I have heard this story a hundred ties over, even in my own family. Aunt Whoever was going to be a great ballet dancer, but she met Uncle Distraction and got pregnant and married and now she works at Sears and hasn’t danced in 20 years. But here is the line that gets me:

Oh yeah life goes on
Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone
Oh yeah life goes on
Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone they walk on

It doesn’t matter. Life goes on. If you never got to be famous, or paint a masterpiece, or travel around the world, that sucks, but life goes on. So does your marriage. And besides, who says your can’t still do it? Wait until you are 50 and your midlife crisis comes around, and do what you never got to do. The 16 year old’s dreams can’t last forever. So what if Jackie didn’t get to be a football star and run off to the city, he could play football with his son and maybe take a vacation to the city. And really, I don’t think it is about giving up dreams, I think it is more about finding new ones. I used to dream about traveling around the world as a journalist, writing for Time and winning a Pulitzer. Now, I dream about buying a house and having a couple of kids. Some people get to live out their dreams and be actors and athletes and other fabulous things. Most don’t and just have to play the hand they are dealt. Which is fine, as long as they are playing.

Jack and Diane really are just like every one of us…two American kids doing the best that they can.