Can We Talk

 This song man. 

I don't think there is another song that pulls at my heart so much for so many different reasons as this one. I was a 12-year-old lonely girl who spent more time alone in her room with her alarm clock radio singing along to whatever was playing than socializing with kids my age. The world outside those 4 walls was still big and scary, despite my home being stress and trauma-filled. 

This song, made me feel like maybe first loves were an actual thing, and maybe, just maybe I would have one of my own. Oddly enough, by this time, 1993, I was in a place where I always imagined myself as the person singing these songs to the object of my affection. That object of affection was always a girl, not any girl I knew, but always the girl from the video. 

I didn't know why at the time. There was never any girl in my limited social circle that I was ever secretly in love with. I just always defaulted to imagining myself as the protagonist in every love song sung by a man or woman, the object of my imagined affection was always a girl or woman. 

But there is something very special about this song, something that brings out the inner child in all of us who recognize it upon its first notes. Something that keeps us all from skipping past it. I would guess that for most of us, it's akin to having a piece of our innocent youth trapped in amber. Preteens and young teens that we were at the time of its release, idealistic in our views of romance and love, awaiting our first kisses, first love letters, and first dates, unaware of the pain that first heartbreak will bring. 

Most of us associate it with our first crushes and first loves. Even now decades later as we all belt it out loud when it blares through the speakers of a car or at a bar, we all get that faraway look in our eyes. Our minds drift back to those last moments of innocence from our childhood. The times when everything was drenched in sexual innuendos or just blatantly sexual. 

 I always hoped I'd meet someone who felt the same way about this song that I do. Someone just for me, someone I could sing this to, off-key and they'd join me not judge me. 

31 years later. Yes, that's right 31 of our Good Lord Jesus' years later and this song is still as special as it was when it first hit our ears. 

My own personal attachment to this song aside I hope Mr. Campbell knows just how much he is loved and appreciated for singing his heart out for us on this one. 

This one is truly the sweet spot of childhood memories for me.  

Enjoy.