On the Playlist 22JUL2018…

Weekend bonus! Hot here in SoCal so chilling out at home reading and listening to music. Today I've got Queen on the playlist. In particular "A Night at the Opera". First got into Queen in high school. In my grade 10 social studies class there was a girl I was interested in and so, being the awkward nerd I was, I schemed on how to get her attention. She was one of the drama kids which interested me even more. I noticed she had doodled on her pencil case the logo from this album. Aha, I had my hook. I had to do some research (forget how I did this as it was pre-internet) on what the logo was. Figured it out and got the album. Listened to it quite a bit. I had my own stereo system in my room at home and did a lot of taping. I learned some of the songs and in particular "Love of My Life" (yes, I was that corny). I made a point from then on to hum or sing that song under my breath when I was around her. Needless to say the ploy didn't work. Maybe if I had just talked to her. Ugh, I cringe thinking about my akwardness around girls at that age! Anyway, upshot is I liked the music and got more of their albums. Enjoyed their earlier albums when the small print always said "No Synthesizers!" Oh yes, this album also has another rather popular song on it called "Bohemian Rhopsody."

Speaking of Bohemian Rhapsody, later in High School, and once I had my driver's license and a car, I fell in with a crowd that was into going cruising on a Saturday night. This involved piling into several cars (this was very strategic as to which car you got into) and driving around town with the windows down and the music on. My car (1970 Chevelle 4-door) was usually the least popular in our group - I think I had too much wierd music on my mix tapes - but I didn't care. I had rigged up my Walkman to a set of battery-powered speakers since I couldn't be bothered to put a good stereo in the car. The routine usually consisted of going to 7-Eleven getting Slurpees and twizzlers (better eaten when frozen in the Slurpee). Trying to be obnoxious as possible at the 7-Eleven but not actually kicked out. Props for coming up with some crazy mix of flavors. Then driving downtown with the windows open. In winter this was important to be cool and required running the heater at full blast. There were a couple specific roads we would go down - a run up and down Groat road was definitely required. At some point Bohemian Rhapsody would come on the mix tape and we would all sing along. At any point when we hit a traffic light just right one of the cars would do a Chinese fire drill (yes, we called it that. My Kids cringe when I tell them that). When Wayne's World came out several years later it was a big hit in Canada because that was our High School experience encapsulated in the movie. Didn't hurt that both Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey were Canadian. Interesting the crowd I had fallen in with that were into cruising were the church youth group. We would go after our Saturday night bible study. Most of the people in the youth group turned up so they could go cruising after. The whole cruising scene was cool until there was an accident. No one was hurt but a car was totalled and the parents shut it down. My brother was in the passenger seat of the car that crashed and he had huge props for years because despite the car jumping a median and doing a flip before hitting a utility pole on the other side he was able to hold on to his Slurpee and not spill a drop. 

Queen - A Night At the Opera