This songs matters to me, because: (your explanation here)

Great story, Dedo.

 

I could read your writings all day, DD.

 

That's an incredibly emotional story DD. Thank you so much for sharing.

 

This thread has made it quite misty around here.

 

Thanks. Especially for starting this wonderful thread, which would make a great book.

Something else you might appreciate, DD -- in telling that story today for what probably was the first time ever, I was struck by how much it sounds like something that could've happened to Eric and Tami Taylor.

 

That is so true, Dedo. I was laughing pretty hard in the latest episode after Tami's volleyball team won its first game, and Julie was like, "Yeah dad, but they're 1-7." And Eric was all, "Yes, but mom is 1-0!"

Much like the Taylors, your parents sound like good, strong people who love one another.

 

As do yours.

 

I knew I felt a tremor along Wells Street.
Kudos to Pops Bubbler, that dawwwwwg.

 

Music has been a huge part of my life for the past 35 years but for the life of me I can't think of a song that resonates with me like these songs do for you guys.

Some tremendous stuff here, as others have said one of the best threads ever here. Thanks for sharing everyone. Keep 'em coming.

 

Please allow me to take another swing. ...

I tend to think a lot of things to death, but this instance, in my mind, isn't one of them. As I mentioned in my previous post on this thread, I was very attached to my first girlfriend.

The summer before my junior year of high school, in 1999, I began listening to MxPx. I bought all of their albums. My allegiance to the band never wavered.

And when she and I first met about six months later, I converted her into a fan. She began to like older Green Day, 311, NOFX, Less Than Jake, Pennywise, Rancid -- all my favorites. And the list just kept growing. She’d always listen to my suggestions and take them to heart. It was a great feeling.

It was when she began cheating on me for the second -- I think, though I could be underestimating -- time at college that she began taking a liking to Slipknot and Insane Clown Posse and the other shitty bands of that nature. Well, so did her new guy.

I always kept up to date on the happening in Bremerton, Wash., MxPx's turf, and found they were going to release a new album, "Before Everything And After", on Sept. 16. But since I was managing at the campus radio station distribution agreement with Tooth and Nail Records, I was able to get the album a week earlier. So on Sept. 5, I had the new MxPx album in my hands, and everything was great. …

That afternoon, however, she broke up with me. Everything was fucked up. Our relationship, my life, the last four years. Everything was different. I felt empty. I was completely lost. But I still had my new MxPx CD. I hadn't heard any tracks off of it, and I was sure that would get me a little comfort and shine some sunlight on this miserable day.

It didn't.

The album is filled with love songs and break-up songs. While I liked the lyrics because they made me think, I hated the lyrics because they made me think. Just looking at the track titles should have clued me in, but I don't remember thinking about them: "Broken Hearted," "First Day Of The Rest Of Our Lives," "Everything Sucks (When You're Gone)," "Quit Your Life," "You Make Me, Me," "Don't Walk Away" and "On The Outs."

Alone in my dark room -- in every sense of the phrase -- I listened to the album, and the 40 minutes couldn't have been more different from what I thought they'd be a week earlier. Instead of putting the disc in the player and laying in bed with the love of my life, just taking in the sounds, it was me, alone, and she, with him.

I cried a lot.

That song, more than any other, summed up exactly how I was feeling. It was incredible. It only made things hurt worse, but with that, I could relate.

I took the album home that weekend. I wrecked my car a year earlier and was dependent on my mother to drive me to and from school, which didn't help how I was feeling. Before we got to our house, she had to make a "quick trip," which turned into an hour-long visit with her friend. I waited in the car, and I listened to the CD again. I felt worse about everything. But I wanted to feel that way. I don't know why, and I've never really tried to figure that out. I just lost a major part of my life, and maybe if she saw how awful I was taking it, she'd take me back? Actually, that's probably it.

When I got back to school that Sunday night, I started talking to her about the album and how it reminded me of us. She probably didn't want to hear me say that. I sent the tracks to a friend of her eventual new boyfriend, and he told her "MxPx sold out; you won't like it." She listened. I made a copy of the CD for her and pleaded for her to give it a spin. I burned it, titled it and wrote a short message on it.

"I'll always love you,
Mike"

She put it on her dresser and promised she'd listen to it. I made excuses to go down to her room because I didn't want to let go of her. And every time I'd step in, I'd see the album, still in its case, still in its position on the desk, still unopened. For a month, it sat there. Her new friends told her she wouldn't like it. She took their word. Suddenly, mine meant nothing, and again, I felt as such.

But while that album came along at a wrong time -- or did it? -- it helped me get over the girl in a very big way.

The day I found out my ex-girlfriend had started dating the stoner fuck -- who would end up using and abusing her before overdosing on drugs and killing himself -- I was a wreck, but decided to go to a party the next night.

My friend told me to go to this girl's room at 7 p.m., so we could pregame for the party. I got there, and on the other side of the door was an unbelievably gorgeous girl. I sat by her in journalism class, but barely knew her name, and I'd obviously never spoken to her. And why the hell would she have spoken to me? Forget the fact I dress like a bum with my punk rock T-shirts and ripped cargo pants, I was practically married to another woman. Later, I found out she was one of the eight girls I thought to myself, “They’re cute. I’d sleep with them.”

We ended up talking and drinking shots of Aftershock for a half-hour before our other two friends came into the room. We didn't know each other, so we were both a bit nervous and didn't know in what we were interested. So we talked about the journalism class and who we knew. I told her I just got dumped, and she knew -- apparently this was a coincidental fix-up. So we talked briefly about that. Then we spoke about our favorite bands. We each liked Green Day, No Use For A Name, Blink 182, Rage Against The Machine, Nirvana, Sublime and, believe it or not, MxPx.

We went to the party, had a lot of fun. I end up getting real sick. She took care of me. She cleaned me up, sent me to the bathroom to brush my teeth, took the sheets off my bed so I wouldn't sleep in vomit and tucked me in with a wet washcloth on my head. Then, as I found out three years later, she went to her room to throw up and go to bed.

The next day, I got a hold of her on AIM because, by some sort of miracle, I remembered her name from two seconds of searching through her Media Player playlist. We spoke online for a couple hours that Saturday afternoon and decided to hang out after my pick-up football game that night. We ended up talking for 10 straight hours that night, into 7:30 a.m. -- a pattern we repeated for four weeks before dating.

During the next day, I mentioned how I had been listening to the new MxPx CD for about a month, and how I really didn't enjoy listening to it at first, but now I really liked it. She asked me if I could burn her a copy. When I came down to her room on Monday afternoon to walk her to our Media Design class, I handed her the album. She walked over to her room and laid it on her dresser.

The scene was eerily similar. Both girls lived in the same kind of room -- a deluxe double with a common room, a bathroom and a bedroom. My ex-girlfriend lived on 602B. My new friend, in whom I was already interested, lived in 202B. I made the same walk to each room, but stopped in front of the elevator instead of riding it. I stood in the doorway as I handed the same album to each of them. They put it in the same place. The same feelings rushed back.

After class, she told me she wanted to take a nap, so I kept myself busy in my room, waiting for her to wake. She asked me to dinner a couple hours later, and we met in her room. Before I could recreate history once again, to check out where the MxPx CD was sitting, while I was standing at her door, she said, "By the way, I listened to that MxPx album you burned for me. I love it."

All I could do was smile and breathe a sigh of relief. By that sentence, that sentiment, I was confident again. This was going to be different. This was going to be better.

And it was. It is.

 

Wow - Amazing thread. Thank you DD for starting. Thank you to those of you who shared such moving passages.

Buck your eloquent words on grand master flash brought me to tears.

I hope to contribute a passage or two myself but at this point I am too intimandated by the work so far.