Zoot Suit Riot

I never thought I’d be one to blog about a song. Oh, but I am. I’m on a train to Portland, working on a story for class, but I had to take a break to jot this down.

Music has a way of dictating so much of our lives. Songs can inspire us, depress us, make us happy, help us fall in love; they do so many things. And somehow, songs teach us a thing or two about memory. You can listen to a song and you are sent back ten or fifteen years, to a certain moment in time, with a certain person, in a particular place. Even if you haven’t thought of the event, person or place in years, the song can send you back. It’s crazy.

I’m listening to the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies album. The song, Zoot Suit Riot sends me back nine years, back to my senior year of high school. We were at the prom. Chris Whitehead and Rachel Brown had been taking swing dance lessons together. The song came on and they were center stage, dancing for the rest of us.

I’d always wanted to learn to swing dance. My sister, Shelli, and I had learned some of the cheesy western swing dances when we both lived at home. But when she left to college, all attempts at swing dancing went away.

Zoot Suit Riot will always remind me of my senior prom. It will also remind me of Eugene and finding the album at the library.

Music is a funny thing. I can’t imagine life without it; I depend on it so much. Is it bad to let it dictate so much of my life- my emotions, my memories?

I guess it doesn’t matter. Even if it does, I’m still listening…and I’m gonna love it!