5/20/10: No More Lonely Nights: Paul McCartney

I actually do know why I woke up with this song in my head. On Monday I went to one of my favorite SF Valley eateries – The Pizza Cookery. By the way, their garlic rolls are amazing! Anyways I was inhaling one of their amazing garlic rolls and adding butter to every bite (you can’t not) while “No More Lonely Nights” came on. I said to my friend, “Awe, this song always reminds me of my Aunt Mo.” She said, “Who is it?” I almost choked on my garlic roll and said “Hello! Paul McCartney!” Then I have to remind myself that not everyone was raised like me. My mom used to have a game for us when were driving somewhere, “Name that artist”. We had to name the artist preferably before they started singing. Most of the time I sucked at this game. I knew all the words to the songs but never could remember who the artist was. I mean, I knew the staples in my family – The Beatles, CCR (Creedance Clearwater Revival), Steve Miller, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, the “Coug” (John Cougar Mellencamp). But my mom liked to throw out some obscure songs that we have heard of but most likely didn’t know who sang them. Hi mom, I’ve 7 years old how I am supposed to remember this is a Steely Dan song. I think it was an excuse for all of us to shut the hell up in the car.

So this song reminds me of my Aunt Melissa, or Aunt Mo, or just Mo. My Aunt Mo was my fun and silly aunt. When we lived in Kansas she would take us across this creek (I remembered it as a river) for picnics. The neighbor across the way had a crazy horse and I remember one time she took us across the way and the horse went nuts and started to charge us. Just imagine a bunch of little girls screaming bloody murder and my aunt dragging a 3 year old by her arm (me) through the creek to get away. Good times. She also was the aunt that would think it was funny to punch us in the leg to give us “dead leg”. I remember telling her “I’m 5! I’m too little!” She would just laugh. But hey those are funny memories to me. She also used to let me sit on her lap and drive her little Toyota truck on the freeway at night. It was awesome! Anyways, she used to have slumber parties for all of her nieces. She had games for us to play the entire weekend. One particular slumber party she had was right after she got married. She just got a video camera so she would shoot us dancing and doing skits. She will kill me for saying this but she had us shoot her lip-synching to songs for her new hubby, Don. We called him “Dunkle Don”. She did two songs that I remember – one “You Better Be Good To Me” by Tina Turner (that album was like the sound track for that weekend) and “No More Lonely Nights” by Paul McCartney. She was all decked out in brown corduroys a brown plaid shirt and puffy brown vest (the Back to the Future kind). It was awesome! I think we kids all have a great sense of humor and can laugh because we were allowed to be silly and things were not taken so seriously. When we all get together we always end up talking about that slumber party and how much fun it was and then end up making fun of Aunt Mo for the lip-syncing…I think it is just getting her back for all the “dead legs”.