If this were a Pepsi commercial Bob Dylan would be playing in the background and I would be pontificating about songs that define a generation.  But what good does a generation defining song serve except for shilling carbonated beverages or making you question just how much you can admit about your college years without permanently damaging your kiddos? Not much.  It’s a lot more fun (and serves this blog post’s point) to remember those songs that you would only listen to only if you had your headphones on; those songs that you would have gladly smashed your radio just to stop them from playing when your parents knocked on the bedroom door.

The two little girls in that picture would grow up to amass a collection of songs that would to this day make their parents cringe if they knew what they were listening to when left to their own portable listening devices.  We had a list of “dirty songs” (and not like X-tina dirty, we are way too old for that) that in number rivaled the amount of slap and jelly bracelets we could fit on our arms.  The smarmy collection of songs these pre-teens would listen to in secrecy included (but was by no means limited to) “I Wanna Sex You Up,” by Color Me Badd, “Let’s Talk About Sex,” by Salt ‘n Pepa, “Talk Dirty to Me,” by Poison, and the crowning glory of our collection, Frank Zappa’s “Catholic Girls” (a cover but still soooo NSFW). Yes, hold the phone indeed, what eleven-year-old listens to Frank Zappa? That was the beauty of the diversity of our collection: we were non-discriminatory, and I would somehow like to think that gave us some culture (as dastardly as that culture may be).

This clandestine collection of songs was filled with curse words, talk of carnal knowledge (and yes, we included Van Halen for the simple fact that their album title was a curse word) and we sang them at the top of our lungs in the park… yes, the park. Should our parents find out we were screaming the lyrics to curse and sex-filled songs from the top of the monkey bars I am fairly certain they would find a way to ground us even now.  But luckily even my mom doesn’t read this blog, and so just how bad-ass we were on the playground shall remain a secret.

A few evenings ago I was enjoying a frothy beverage (hey, ya know… some of these songs would make great beer commercials) and what did I hear? The king of our dirty song list, Frank Zappa, singing about tiny little mustaches and instantly I broke down into a floundering mess of laughter.  While everyone down the rail from me was questioning if a straight-jacket or handcuffs would be a more appropriate means to control me, I struggled to type and finally send a text message to the little blond in the picture, who, while serving in the military half way around the world, pinged me back with the next line of lyrics.  Pepis can have Dylan; I’ll take Zappa.