Blogging for Books: Relationship with a Song

Thanks to Joshilyn Jackson for hosting this month's Blogging for Books (credit The Zero Boss for creating this writing challenge).

This month's Blogging for Books topic is about your close personal relationship, real or imagined, with a song.

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Is it possible to have a relationship with just one song? Which is to say, if I am the sort to have close personal relationships with songs, wouldn’t different ones work their way into my heart or echo through a piece of my life every so often? Thinking about this challenge, several of the usual suspects popped into my mind:

Peter Gabriel’s San Jacinto, which I played loudly in the dark as a teenager.
The Who’s Cache Cache, which is beautiful side B poetry.
AC/DC’s Hells Bells, which my brother and I played over and over as we tried to parse out the lyrics from a cassette recording off the radio.
Modern English (Melt With You), Paul Simon (Call Me Al, Me & Julio Down By the Schoolyard), everything by The Kinks, and the entire soundtrack to The Big Chill – these would cure me from my college roommate’s insistence on playing Cat Stevens until my ears bled.
Stray Cats (Stray Cat Strut), who I saw at SUNY Stonybrook when they were just starting out. That same year I saw REM get booed off the stage, misinterpret it, and return for an encore.
Billy Joel – can anyone grow up on Long Island and not adore Billy Joel? My neighbor went to high school with him. We trick-or-treated his house one year. I saw him once at my local pizza place with Christy Brinkley and a cast on his wrist from a recent motorcycle accident.

As my mental list grew, I reconnected with Billy Joel’s It’s Still Rock N Roll:
Hot funk, cool punk, even if it's old junk
It's still rock and roll to me

To me too, Billy, I thought. It’s all so good, so soul deep. How can I pick just one? Then, suddenly, I knew. There is one song that comes to me when I am at my lowest. When I am hurting so much there is no separation between physical and emotional pain, I will hear it in my mind. If I am able, I will hum or sing along. The worst part is, this is a pop hit. I *hate* happy shiny pop hits. I hate the bands that record happy shiny pop hits and I continue to hate happy shiny pop artists, fans, and music. As embarrassing as it is, there is no running from my deep personal relationship with Wilson-Phillips’ Hold On For One More Day.

There. I said it.

The strange thing is that the song reads so relationship-y, but that is not how it feels to me. When I hear this song in my mind, I am fighting for my life – and I mean that literally, not dramatically. I hear it when I fight for the everydayness that so many people take for granted, when I am in too much pain to get past my front door, when all I can do is breathe and wait for things to get better. This is my song of strength:

I know this pain
Why do lock yourself up in these chains?
No one can change your life except for you
Don't ever let anyone step all over you
Just open your heart and your mind, mmm
Is it really fair to feel this way inside?

Ooh some day somebody's gonna make you want to
Turn around and say goodbye
Until then baby are you going to let them
Hold you down and make you cry
Don't you know?
Don't you know things can change
Things'll go your way
If you hold on for one more day
Can you hold on for one more day
Things'll go your way
Hold on for one more day

You could sustain
Mmm or are you comfortable with the pain?
You've got no one to blame for your unhappiness
You got yourself into your own mess
Lettin' your worries pass you by
Baby don't you think it's worth your time
To change your mind?

Noo noo, some day somebody's gonna make you want to
Turn around and say goodbye
Until then baby are you going to let them
Hold you down and make you cry
Don't you know?
Don't you know things can change
Things'll go your way
If you hold on for one more day
Can you hold on for one more day
Things'll go your way
Hold on for one more day

I know that there is pain
But you hold on for one more day
And you break free from the chains
Yeah I know that there is pain
But you hold for one more day
And you break free right from the chains

Some day somebody's gonna make you want to
Turn around and say goodbye
Until then baby are you going to let them
Hold you down and make you cry
Don't you know?
Don't you know things can change
Things'll go your way
If you hold on for one more day, yeah
Can you hold on
Don't you know things can change
Things'll go your way
If you hold on for one more day
Can you hold on Can you hold on
Mmm... Can you hold on baby
Won't you tell me now
Hold on for one more day
Cause It's gonna go your way...