One thing I didn’t manage to include was how radically different this situation played out in the 90s. Today you could just open Spotify and search, show or share the song, but back then you were bound to the whims of the airwaves. That meant a lot of frustration, a lot of “right place at the right time” situations. Of course, I hated when I heard about something and had no way of getting access to it (books, music, movies) as opposed to now that everything is at your fingertips… but it was also kinda beautiful in a way, because you got to experience moments like these.
1991 was a pivotal age for me too, music-wise. At the time of the events of the comic, it’s true, I wasn’t very interested in music, but by the end of the year I started to listen to the radio more and there was fantastic music coming out. U2 released Achtung Baby and Nirvana Nevermind, and a few months later in 1992 Iron Maiden would release Fear of the Dark, which started my first musical obsession. When I saw this happening to her I was on the brink of falling in love with music too, maybe that’s why the memory has stuck with me all this time.
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… FINDING her religion.
As I understand it, she was losing her religion over not finding Losing My Religion
(I never really encounter the phrase used metaphorically, outside of this song, but Wikipedia tells me this is a valid use of it)
Quite a touching story! Thank you for sharing!
Now I’m curious, do you remember what the song was?
If you know the song, the hint is not subtle. It is “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M.
One of the most recognisable parts from it is “That’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion”.
Very sweet story. And yes, being even older than you, I well remember the times when everything was NOT easily reachable within seconds on the interwebs. I remember spending hours trawling through the local library, trying to find some book, any book, that might have the answer to some obscure question I had – now I draw my phone out and have the answer a few seconds later (OK, not always – I’m still good at thinking out questions so obscure that even the internet can’t answer them).
That’s a beautiful story. The same thing kind of happened to me, over and over again in 1990. “Sadness part 1” by Enigma. “Policy of Truth” by Depeche Mode. “Think” by Information Society. Those songs had me completely in their grip then, and they still do now, from time to time.
One of the great things about the 90s is that every other week a song would come out that sounded like nothing else before. Probably a mix of new technologies and inspiration from older music (mandolins in my college rock? Adding a dance beat to every single music genre?) You could trace back the elements, but they didn’t sound derivative. Just before grunge dominated the landscape, I remember noticing how clean and crisp music sounded compared to older music. It was a great time to be a music lover.
I keep re-reading this comic, and I don’t know why, but it makes me cry every time. I think this is my favorite comic on the entire site. 🙂
I carried this story for decades and I’m glad I found a way to tell it in a way that didn’t just sound like “there was this one girl who liked a song very much.” I recently read that the random things you remember from your childhood, you remember them because they marked and shaped you somehow, for better or worse: something shifted inside you at that moment. I’ve been looking back at those moments trying to understand them better, first with “Lizard” and now with this one. I’m glad it resonated with you, thank you for the kind words.