Elsa Hearts the 80s

Elsa's current favorite song is "Don't You Want Me" by the Human League. And I'm sure you can guess where her exposure to this song came from: The Swiffer ad that is currently being plastered all over the airwaves. We usually fast-forward through commercials, and somehow we still manage to see those ads at least once a day. At first, Elsa would perk up and pay attention every time the song came on. Then she started singing along with it. Then she announced that it was her favorite song, and she's been singing it on her own, when the commercial isn't even on. So I finally downloaded it from iTunes and burned it on disk for her. Seeing as it's her favorite song and all, I thought she was entitled to hear more than ten seconds of the chorus.

While I was looking up "Don't You Want Me," I also came across other fun early-80s songs that brought back memories for me and that I thought Elsa would enjoy, so I ended up burning a whole mix CD of 80s music for us to listen to in the car. Elsa is especially partial to "Africa" by Toto, "Down Under" by Men at Work, and "867-5309" by Tommy Tutone.

As we were listening to the CD, I was reminded of how when I was kid (way back in the 80s), TV ads often featured music from the 50s and 60s. It's funny that the 80s will be Elsa's 50s, and the songs I grew up hearing are now the ones being used to hawk mops. I also explained to Elsa that these songs, which I downloaded from the internet and put on CD for us to play in the car, were released at a time when the only thing you could listen to in the car was whatever happened to be playing on the radio. Horrors!