11/10/2018 0 Comments Radio Ga GaLast night, I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody with my husband and some of our kids, after our ten-year-old had begged for weeks. Some of you know I started out in screenwriting, and, as the filmmakers intended, I identified with Freddie Mercury on many levels: the search for acceptance in romantic relationships, the creative differences with his bandmates. But more than anything else, the high that Freddie got from making and performing resonated with me.
At eighteen, I had a crazy plan to major in biology and minor in music. I thought I could make a difference as a doctor for the underprivileged. But during my senior year of high school, when my Saturdays were filled with choir competitions, a minister from a church I didn’t attend talked to me about my future options. Elgin Emmons taught English at my small-town school as well as serving in the pulpit of a Methodist church, and I’ll never forget what he said about public education: “I can reach young people here who would never darken the door of a church.” So, teaching was a back-pocket option when I started college, despite the premed plans. Then, late in my first semester, the music department hosted visitors from the Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music. They joined our tiny Freshman Theory class to sing an acapella motet: If Ye Love Me, Keep My Commandments by Thomas Tallis. And my whole world shifted, because I literally felt like the music could levitate us into orbit. I thought, I have to plug people in to something this powerful. And I changed my major to music education. Freddie Mercury’s immigrant parents might have preferred to have a doctor or an engineer for a son. But Freddie plugged into the power and, through his performances, plugged millions of others in, too. Like everyone else, I absorbed the vignettes about the genesis of hits like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Another One Bites the Dust,” and “We Are the Champions” with a smile. But in the closing scene, when Queen performed “Radio Ga Ga” at Live Aid, I could not sit still. I was there. Not literally--though the concert’s publicity was well within my Gen X memory. I was Freddie Mercury--the kid with the radio as her only friend. I didn’t have a CD player until high school graduation. I’d wait for hours for a favorite song to play on the radio and record it on a cassette tape--piracy before MP3s. Music is my drug of choice. I never needed chemicals to get high, just a favorite bass line or harmonic progression. I still plug into the power of radio. You’re giving someone else the power to choose the next song. You never know what dud--or gem--might play next. And despite my busted vocal cords and limited piano ability, what do I spend my days doing? Getting kids plugged into the power of music. It’s my privilege. They may favor different songs, but as long as they can plug in somehow, I’ve done my job. And it’s an irony--maybe not intentional--that Lady Gaga chose the stage name that she did, when her pushing of artistic boundaries has affected today’s youth in the same way as Freddie’s push influenced the 70s and 80s. By creating, we reflect the glory of our creator. I will never tire of going ga-ga with music.
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Elena Vale WahlI blogged much more when my kids were small. Hoping my quality supplants quantity. Archives
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