Salutations friends!

This is a little essay about my very first favorite song (!) by Phil Collins and how it would unwittingly go on to influence my own music and musical tastes 35 years later. Fuck yeah Phil Collins!

Also, this is a rich subject and we’d all love a little nostalgia for the week, so let’s talk about our first favorite songs and artists!

Do you remember your first favorite song?

What was it and how old were you?

Has it impacted you creatively? How?

xxC

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I wish I knew what my first memory of music was.

In my head I imagine being a baby, shaking my rattle to my dad’s classic rock collection, but it would be another 12 years before I would properly discover those albums.

I have a vague recollection of tinkering at my grandmother’s piano when I was 2 or 3, but my very first specific memory of having an emotional reaction to music was when I first heard this song:

I remember the day— My mom had picked me up from daycare, and I was 5 or so years old. I had spent enough time with Raffi and other kiddie artists, but car rides were my first real exposure to “adult” music. My mom wasn’t what I would call a die-hard music fan, but she always had the radio on, usually to the soft rock/ adult contemporary station.

This was the first real song that I knew I loved.

It was because of that shimmery bell keyboard lead. It’s both melancholy and hopeful (and in retrospect, so exquisitely 80s). Then and now, I judged parts of a song based on whether they felt right and satisfying, and that synth is both right and satisfying and I don’t know how else to explain it.

Despite being a writer first, I’ve always been a “music first” listener.1 If I love a song, it’s usually because there is a musical hook that drew me in. I think this is a large part of the reason why the 80s are my favorite musical decade. Every song felt like an explosion of shimmer and synth.

However, on successive listens of this song, I would pick up on the lyrics, as well. I remember it resulted in uncomfortable conversations with my mother about the realities of poverty. I don’t normally associate Phil Collins with stirring lyrics, but even now, I feel this bit viscerally,

She calls out to the man on the street
He can see she's been crying
She's got blisters on the soles of her feet
She can't walk, but she's trying

Oof.

“Another Day in Paradise” was my first favorite song, and Phil Collins was my first favorite artist because when you’re a kid, there’s no nuance. Your favorite artist is whomever made your favorite song. A year or so later, New Kids on the Block and Vanilla Ice (and then Nirvana) would explode into the 1990s. I got a walkman, then a disc-man, and was no longer subject to my mom’s easy listening preferences. I would go on to forget about Phil for a while, but his influence would continue to crop up in strange and unpredictable ways.

In 2011, Spotify came out. I was blown away by the firehose of music that was now available on command. I went on a deep dive of my forgotten favorites.

This was the second Spotify playlist I ever made.

It was inspired by the best songs that would come on the radio when my mom was driving me around in the 1980s. It stars Phil Collins.

Many of my old playlists feel dated now, but not this one. I’ve been streaming it regularly since I made it, and now play it for my own kids who love to listen to “Take Me Home” as I take them home.2

However, even during the peak Spotify years, I had no idea that there would ever come a day when I would be producing my own music. Yet more than thirty years after I heard “Another Day in Paradise” for the first time, I was. I found out that I had a distinct taste for 80s shimmer keyboards in my own songs. I discovered how incredible it felt to find the perfectly right and satisfying accent synth lines for myself.

I love it as much as writing the actual song. It’s exhilarating!

I’m hard at work on making my second album now, and realizing how much the music of that period has influenced me. I feel like I’m basically making an 80s-inspired adult contemporary album, which might sound totally lame to you, but I feel so solid about that direction it’s unshakeable.

And I guess I have Phil Collins to thank for that.

First loves hit hardest.

Because this so so fun, here are some of my other first favorite songs of the period along with their most right and satisfying parts:

Kokomo by The Beach Boys………… I know I said music first, but this is song is great because of the really catchy chorus lyrics (and the steel drum).

Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel…………… the bass line + the japanese flute thing!!!

I Can’t Dance by Genesis…………… “and the ‘Best Use of Coke Bottle Percussion’ award goes to…”

Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits……… I will sit through 5 minutes of this song just for the guitar solo.

Part-Time Lover by Stevie Wonder………The “Dadadada dadadadada” part that Stevie sings.

What were your song first loves?

And what was it about the songs that drew you to them?

And, finally…. lets play the age-old debate game—

Music or lyrics first?