Circa 1974

My favorite pair of jeans — the kind with denim "windowpanes" sewed on &mdash were worn through at the knees and hems, and my Keds were ragged. I usually wore my hair in two long braids, covered by a bandanna. As I walked the blocks of our suburban neighborhood to my friend Elisa's house, I slurped up a bomb pop, tried to teach myself to whistle really loud without using my fingers, wondered if Bob Good would ever play spin-the-bottle with me again, and sang my favorite songs.

Records and the radio were always playing at our house. Our single and crazy mom loved opera and Nana Mouskouri. My oldest sister wore roach clips in her frosted and feathered hair and was into kick-ass hard rock, the next older sister wore glittery shirts and overalls and was a disco and funk fanatic, and my little sister was still a baby listening to baby stuff. Since I was in elementary school at the time, I was more into listening to the Dr. Demento show, thus my singing-down-the-street songs tended to be of the novelty variety:

Popcorn, by Hot Butter (less sung than clucked)
Brand New Key, by Melanie (which I still sing at karaoke all the time)
Knock Three Times, by Tony Orlando and Dawn (interactive!)

...and the tune featured in this (much-later in the '70s) video, made all the more nostalgic with the inclusion of "Special Delivery", the band made up of Kids are People Too! dorks.



Little known fact: The Queen banned this song in the UK upon its release, thinking the wah-wah-whoop organ solos were meant to be the sounds of actual Muskrat Love.