For as long as I can remember music has meant a lot to me, but one day I realized music took me back to times in which I didn't want to relive. I can recall hating the group Cameo because there songs were my mother's joy in playing on nights of her crazed drinking or drug using binges. The volume levels would be so loud that the base would make you stomach thump, while your heart was already beating in your throat because my sister and I already knew an ass whipping was on it's way.
"Yo pretty ladies around the world
Got a weird thing to show you,
So tell all the boys and girls.
Tell your brother, your sister
And mama too, cause they’re
About to go down
And you’ll know just what to do."
Once we lived in a small two bedroom house in the brick yard section of Philly, that little house was like the house of horrors the worst things were seen, heard, happened there. The base really made that little house shake like the windows were going to just burst from the thumping. No place was safe there, the sound traveled throughout and Lord knows what I heard there is forever burned into my deepest memories.
"No romance
No romance
No romance for me mama
Come on baby tell me what’s the word.
Ah – word up"
The music covered up noises as well as made noise, with her music basting you couldn't hear our screams, our cries were added to the soundtrack of Cameo's Word Up. To this day I hate to hear Cameo, but he's not the only one. My mother's other favorite was Sade whom I called SAY-DEE! Listening to her No Ordinary love made me want to just go and meet my God, I would loose all hope in life when I heard that song.
"I gave you all the love I got
I gave you more than I could give
I gave you love
I gave you all that I have inside
And you took my love
You took my love"
Sade always seemed to have a sad and sorrowful sounding voice which was probably the soundtrack for someones suicide if not many someones. I was actually pissed to hear via twitter that Sade came out with a new album recently (2010). I would really not want to hear her voice while along my travels, the sound would probably make me feel, hear and smell my horrible childhood.
When I was in my my early years of elementary school I don't remember what group it was I just know it was an all male rap group, it was a cassette tape. My mother found it and began to call me a dirty little dyke for liking an all male rap group, she repeatedly threw the tape into my face while saying some of the nastiest sexual things to me. Listening to the Tuff Crew makes me feel special but always brings me to this day. I love me some Tuff Crew, they were hot for a little while and this one song was the best.
Even into some of the better days of my life which only came as I became an adult living freely and independent of my mother & father. I fell hopelessly in love once and when I did Stevie Wonder's Ribbon in the Sky was tagged our song, it was placed onto to a blog announcing our relationship, VP was the love of my life....I thought!!!
"Oh so long for this night I prayed
That a star would guide you my way
To share with me this special day
Where a ribbon's in the sky for our love"
I mean God knows I've prayed for so many things, but a love true, pure and free of bullshit drama or arguing is what I desired. I thought I had finally found a relationship of peace in my life for the first time only, this song just made me feel so comfortable. However after a few months the relationship made me feel creepy, lied to, used and unwanted. So the beauty of this song has been forever tarnished in my heart, mind never again will I feel the tingle or joy in which this song was created to make it's listeners feel.
"We cant lose with God on our side
Well find strength in each tear we cry
From now on it will be you and I
And our ribbon in the sky
Ribbon in the sky
A ribbon in the sky for our love"
For my ex and I this ribbon will forever be a black, gloomy cloud that for me always comes when I think of our time spent together. At least the time which lead up to the end, and right after that as well, even Maryland was made dark by the whirlwind of lies that came uncovered.
Now recently with the hope of the birth of my second child through a surrogate that turned out to be a psycho playing games with my emotions, my love Lauryn Hill's song Oh Pretty Baby stings me.
"Your just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off of you
You'd be like heaven to touch
I want to hold you so much
At long last love has arrived
And I thank God I'm alive
You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off of you."
I now know it was too good to be true, people are sick, sad, insane, and hateful. To play this type of game on a person that longs for a child, that wanted just one more blessing to enter into their lives, someone like myself who has been through so much already. So much misery, hurt, sadness and pain. It's like I've been rapped, someone took my most personal desires, turned them against me, used them to make a fool out of me.
Despite all that I've been through I live, despite all that has hurt me I live, despite all that has made me cry I live, despite all that has been done to me I love, I live and I survive. I can hold my head up, be proud that despite of my past I'm not a liar like that person was, I'm not a child abuser like that mother was, I am not a user like that person was, I am not hateful, vindictive, or malicious like that person was. When my die comes when I no longer live I can stand before my God, hold my head up and say that despite what happened to me in life I did not do that in which was done to me, I live through it all as I have always been. Music makes me cry, but crying isn't always so bad that's why I listen to gospel now more than ever before because if it makes me cry it's a good cry.
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