Our former neighbors held a wonderful housewarming party at their new home on New Year’s Day. At this party was our host’s 7 year old niece, who sat very quietly playing a game with her brother in the bedroom until very near the party’s end, when the Chappell Roan album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” began playing from the bluetooth speaker.
Now when I was seven I was a bit of a ham. Hard to imagine, I’m sure, if you know me, but I had a pretty impressive Ed Sullivan imitation… swinging arms and holding the chin and everything (what a little scamp). I could also belt out the hits of Stevie Wonder and Burt Bacharach (my voice hadn’t changed yet so I could still hit a few notes in Dionne Warwick’s key).
In other words, I imitated what I heard and saw around me, which was three major television networks (and our local PBS channel) and whatever music was played on two radio stations - the one with Mike Murphy (a legendary Kansas City DJ) in the mornings, and KPRS, the oldest black-owned radio station in the US.
Thus I could sing songs from The Carpenters and James Brown, Paul McCartney and Billy Preston, and the entire catalog of Tony Orlando and Dawn. It was quite a range, and it seemed like an endless supply - radio was my main source of music, at home or in the car, as we rarely had the money to buy albums and cassette tapes weren’t quite a thing yet. The world came to me on my orange Radio Shack™ Flavoradio, in glorious mono, the one with the one earphone that was far too large to fit in your ear with the twisty beige cord.
This is about the future, have I mentioned that yet? I know you just endured a ton of reminiscing, but this is not about the past. This is about the future, the immediate future, the one coming up right after we finish up with whatever is happening right now.
See, that 7 year old girl began belting out a song titled “Pink Pony Club”, written by Ms. Roan nearly before the girl was born, about a young person who leaves home to find themselves and be accepted for who they really are – a love song to oneself, as it were.
And she KNEW this song, EVERY word, and she sang it strong and proud with arm movements and knee bends.
She was Tiny Cher.
And she wasn’t actually performing for us, she was just lost in the bliss of the loud loud music coming out of that very-impressive-for-it’s-size bluetooth speaker.
The JOY, my friends; the absolute unfiltered confidence displayed by this little human was seen throughout the room and greatly appreciated. But I liked it because it represented an element of the present that I find comforting for the future: Chappell Roan is a queer artist whose songs are rooted in her own culture and tell stories from an LBGTQ+ perspective, songs I would never have heard in my own childhood about perspectives that were not, on the whole, publicly shared.
EVERY word. The kid was incredible; I mean, we were all singing along as best we could, but she had the nuances down. She knew a lot of the rest of the album too, particularly “Hot To Go”, which has its own dance that I’m proud to say my daughter taught me. Well, I don’t think I was supposed to do it outside the house without her permission, but I’m a rebel that way.
Chappell Roan, Olivia Rodrigo, Renee Rapp, Melanie Martinez, Charlie XCX, Billie Eilish - these are the young artists my kid is listening to, all of them unapologetically authentic women with distinct voices that represent for her the power of being who you are. I cannot, in all honesty, say that Tony Orlando did the same for me.
These young alternative women support my daughter’s quest to be herself, to ignore nonsense, and to keep on going. Don’t you wish you had an anthem for that when you were 7?
I am so proud to live in a moment in history when music can inspire young people in this way, support them, particularly young women, and particularly now, when we as a society most need to offer stability against the tsunami of forces ever advancing to subjugate them, body and soul.
The tide of time is ever rising. We have to get ready. We have to store our metaphorical water in bottles and fill our metaphorical sandbags and fortify ourselves with good advice, like
Be yourself.
Ignore nonsense.
Keep on going.
I think that’s where I’m gonna start this year, and I invite you to join me. Let’s make playlists of our personal anthems and keep the music going. We can all, each day, be Our Own Cher.
And let’s all keep connected.
Just knock three times on the ceiling if you want me.
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