This, Sadly, Is the Soundtrack of My Youth

So here I am wondering, for no particular reason, what the soundtrack of my youth would be if I could narrow it down to a single musical archetype. After mulling over the various Michael Jackson songs that McBone Poet Laureate MPF and I used to breakdance to, it occurred to me that Weird Al was probably closer to the mark, but none of these answers, nor Beat It, nor Eat It, quite rang true.

A certain gathering of superstars (and Kenny Loggins) captured my imagination for a year or so, but was that song so pervasive that I was compelled to return to it again and again, deep into the night and sometimes against the will of my own sleep starved body?  No, definitely not.

God knows why, but I was really into the Commodores for a few years there.  Bruce Springsteen, Huey Lewis, Prince...to a pre-adolescent boy they were all pretty awesome.  None can lay claim to this distinction.

The horrifying dreams I used to have (and, um, sometimes still do) of Darth Vader hunting me in the dark brought me closer to the bull's eye.  Certainly the Imperial March is a permanent brand on my subconscious, but even that obsession is a fairly distant second place finisher.

I don't know how or why it dawned on me suddenly, but at last the clouds parted and the answer struck me like some silver arrow shot from the bow of a diminutive, 8-bit hero.  This, sadly, and unequivocally, is the soundtrack of my youth:



And so here goes a little, mournful lament to my attention span, and what it might have been if not for that cursed Gannon.

nwb