Is it Noraebang day?

For some reason I can't get the following two songs out of my head - and so, in an attempt to get the tunes out of my head, I'll write a blog about them.

"Waiting On A Star To Fall" - Boy Meets Girl

I hear your name whispered on the wind
It's a sound that makes me cry
I hear a song blow again and again
Through my mind and I don't know why
I wish I didn't feel so strong about you
Like happiness and love revolve around you

Trying to catch your heart
Is like trying to catch a star
So many people love you baby
That must be what you are

Waiting for a star to fall
And carry your heart into my arms
That's where you belong
In my arms baby yeah

I've learned to feel what I cannot see
But with you I lose that vision
I don't know how to dream your dream
So I'm all caught up in superstition
I want to reach out and pull you to me
Who says I should let a wild one go free

Trying to catch your heart is like
Trying to catch a star
But I can't love you this much baby
And love you from this far

Waiting for a star to fall
And carry your heart into my arms
That's where you belong
In my arms baby yeah

Waiting (however long)
I don't like waiting (I'll wait for you)
It's so hard waiting (don't be too long)
Seems like waiting makes me love you even more

Waiting for a star to fall
And carry your heart into my arms
That's where you belong
In my arms baby yeah


"Hands To Heaven" - Breathe
As I watch you move, across the moonlit room
There's so much tenderness in your loving
Tomorrow I must leave, the dawn knows no reprieve
God give me strength when I am weary...

So raise your hands to heaven and pray
That we'll be back together someday
Tonight, I need your sweet caress
Hold me in the darkness
Tonight, you calm my restlessness
You relieve my sadness

As we move to embrace, tears run down your face
I whisper words of love, so softly
I can't believe this pain, it's driving me insane
Without your touch, life will be lonely
So raise your hands to heaven and pray
That we'll be back together someday

Tonight, I need your sweet caress
Hold me in the darkness
Tonight, you calm my restlessness
You relieve my sadness

Morning has come, another day
I must pack my bags and say goodbye...

Something terribly nostalgic comes over me when I hear these songs. Not 80's headbands with hot pink stripes and black and white polka dots (which also comes to mind) nor wearing Members Only jackets and rushing home to watch MTV. (And for those of you doing the math, I have an older brother that although I am not superdy-dooper close to, I did have a lot of his childhood and adolescence rub off on me)

For me these songs, whether I hear them randomly played on the radio or they come up on my shuffle on my iPod, this tingling feeling creeps over me. I remember where I was when I first heard those songs as a kid, and what was happening. For Boy Meets Girl, I was sitting in the car with my Dad and brother, in the parking lot, waiting for my Mom who was in the store. My brother just busts out singing all the lyrics, and I have no real explanation as to why, but the tune stuck with me.

For Breathe...I came in one day from school, and my Mom had just bought the Breathe "All That Jazz" album on cassette tape for her and my brother. They immediately popped it into the boombox my brother had in the kitchen and started singing along. I remember when "Hands To Heaven" started to play and my Mom burst into tears as she mouthed the words to the record. It wouldn't be until five or six years later that I understood how much those lyrics truly meant to her about a part of her past she rarely talked about.

And even weirder, is that following my lifetime, throughout my middle school, high school, and now my early adulthood years -- I have had instantaneous moments, or memories that correllate with a time when I heard that song being played. I think that's amazing about these two very special songs. They have this tremendously bittersweet honesty and quality to their lyrics and their melodic tunes. It just gets me every time that no matter how old I get, or what I go through, as soon as one of these songs pops on, I am transported back to a time and a feeling, almost immediately.

Music is just a most incredulously powerful thing.