60 Songs That Explain the 90s and 10 songs That Explain My Childhood

60 Songs that Explain the 90s by Rob Harvilla was my first five star read of the year. Research shows that music we listen to in our teenage years binds to our brains differently since our brains are rapidly developing during that time, so it’s no surprise that this book covered me in waves of nostalgia and fond memories. The songs Harvilla covers in the book are grouped by theme:

• Chapter 1: Chaos Agents
• Chapter 2: Sell Outs or Not or Maybe
• Chapter 3: Women vs. Women in Rock
• Chapter 4: Vivid Geography or Everybody Hates a Tourist
• Chapter 5: Villains and Adversaries
• Chapter 6: Flukes, Comebacks and Spectacular Weirdos
• Chapter 7: Teenage Hijinks
• Chapter 8: Romance and Sex and Immaturity
• Chapter 9: Myths vs. Mortals
• Chapter 10: Big Feelings

I think the chapter titles alone illustrate both the variety of music that was popular in the 90s as well as Harvilla’s creativity and humor when discussing each song. Listening to this book made me smile. I even laughed out loud a few times. The book also caused me to reflect on the music that defined my childhood. The first song Harvilla features is My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion so I was immediately taken back to my bedroom in Solon, Ohio. Where my best friend and I would belt out Celine Dion lyrics while listening on my portable boombox. Since the boombox had a cassette player we often recorded our own radio shows, counting down the week’s top hits. Another one of our favorite activities was recording music videos, the first of which was, of course, a Celine Dion song — God bless my Mom who had the patience to be our videographer for not only our music videos but also our cooking shows. It was hard to come up with a list of only ten songs that define my childhood, but I think the list below sums things up pretty well.

1. I love you Lord by Laurie Klein (1976): This song is one of my earliest musical memories as my Mom used to sing this to me every night before I went to sleep. I’m not sure when she started or stopped, but I can vividly remember laying in my bed in our first house hearing her softly sing this song. While I never had kids of my own, for all the young Mamas out there I hope you have the courage and love in your heart to sing to your little ones. I haven’t heard this song in decades, but the memory of my Mom singing it to me was so comforting that I often turned back to this song while battling cancer last year.
2. Jesus is Just Alright — DC Talk (1992): Honestly, I could have picked any song from Free At Last or Jesus Freak, or any of the DC Talk albums released in the 90s. At the time my parents were very into contemporary Christian music, and DC talk was at the top of the list. Apparently not everyone was into Christian music at the time — my Dad’s car got broken into one night and when we woke up the next morning his cassettes were strewn about the front yard, for some reason I can still see the DC Talk cassette cases in the dewy lawn.
3. Sold — John Michael Montgomery (1995): Do you ever look back on certain memories and think, ‘Wow, I was such a weird kid.’? Well, Sold by John Michael Montgomery does that for me. My Mom used to blow dry my hair every morning before school, so each morning after showering I would wander down the hall into my parents room, sit down at my Mom’s vanity and pull out two hairbrushes. I didn’t use the hair brushes to give my mom a head start on combing out my thick hair, I used them as a microphone and guitar, while I stared at myself in the mirror and loudly sang over the whir of the blow dryer “Hey pretty lady won’t you give me a sign. I’ll give anything to make you mine oh mine.” First of all, what a strange song for a young girl to have memorized. Second of all, I’m slightly appalled that I was singing about a human auction every single morning.
4. The Great Adventure — Steven Curtis Chapman (1993): Apparently using household objects for microphones was a big thing in my house, as I not only sang in front of the bathroom mirror with hairbrushes but also on the family room mantle with an assortment of cooking utensils. The family room singing was a family affair, and we called ourselves KUB, the Kitchen Utensils Band. Truth be told, I can’t remember my Mom participating but everyone else did. Whenever The Great Adventure came on, our creative choreography really had a chance to shine because we would jump off the mantle and run circles through our kitchen, dining room and living room since the lyrics said “Saddle up your horses…another time around the circle trying to make it better than the last.”
5. Born to Run — Bruce Springsteen (1975): By now it’s probably clear that my parents like music. The Boss has always been one of my Dad’s favorite artists and apparently one of the first things my parents did together back at BGSU was listen to Bruce Springsteen’s Live at the Agora concert, I didn’t fact check this but I know they listened to something from The Boss in my Dad’s dorm. My Dad also used to talk about how the local Cleveland radio station WMMS, would play the same songs every Friday at 5 PM, one of which was Born to Run. I’m not sure if it was this or just my Dad’s love of music that inspired him to blare music every Friday when he got home from work but Born to Run was usually part of the playlist.
6. Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under? — Shania Twain (1995): I used to spend hours reading the lyrics on CD jackets of my newest CD so I could sing along shamelessly, but we all know there are some songs that we’ve been singing incorrectly for years. My sister is six years younger than me so she was always trying to keep up with me and my brother, and to be honest did a pretty good job at it. But over the years her youth and innocence would breakthrough, oftentimes when she was confused over song lyrics. Shaina Twain’s 1995 hit is one of many I could have selected that brought laughter to my family for years. My sister who was three years old when this song was released used to proudly sing “Whose bed have your boobs been under?”
7. Dancing Queen — Abba (1976): Back to the music videos, my best friend Maggie and I made a real banger to this 70s hit. My sister also starred in the video which featured all of us in dance leotards, for some reason my friend and I were students in the class and Bethany was our teacher. I’m not sure why we all had leotards because I don’t think any of us were still taking dance lessons, which really showed. Despite our lack of dance skills this video inspired my brother and his friends to create a music video of their own, a parody of the Backstreet Boys song I Want it That Way, filmed entirely in our basement my brother and his friends jogged on the treadmill, smashed soda cans and ate bags of Doritos singing “I lost ten pounds today”.
8. MMMbop — Hanson (1997): My niece and nephews figured out how to say ‘Hey Google’ and request their favorite songs as soon as they could talk. They will never get to experience the sheer exhilaration of sitting in the car anxiously anticipating the song they personally requested to be broadcast over the airways. I’m sure Hanson is memorable for all girls my age, this band of brothers somehow stood apart from all the other popular boy bands of the 90s. However, this song is memorable for me because it was the first, and maybe only song I requested to hear by calling our local radio station. I’m pretty sure we were in the McDonald’s parking lot when it happened, pure joy!
9. About An Hour Ago — O.A.R. (1997): To this day, working as a lifeguard is the best job I ever had. There are so many songs that remind me of the Solon Municipal Pool, but anything by O.A.R. makes me think back on everything that made working at the pool so great. I became friends with upperclassmen and college students and as such adopted their taste in music. Going to see O.A.R in concert at the Tower City Amphitheater with all of the lifeguards is a favorite summertime memory from my high school years.
10. No Such Thing — John Mayer (2001): Speaking of concerts…summertime in Cleveland, Ohio generally meant outdoor concerts. I don’t know how I had the money to go to so many concerts, but I feel like I went to several every summer. One concert, however, is more memorable than the rest, John Mayer and Counting Crows at Blossom Music Center. I wish I could say it’s because John Mayer is such a great guitarist or something about the actual music, but instead its because I lost my purse, and car keys during the concert and didn’t figure this out until the show ended and we were stuck in the parking lot waiting for what felt like hours while my Dad drove all the way to Blossom to bring me a second set of keys. Thanks Dad!