A Top Ten Memoir: 2024 - "I'm gathering material and holding it to the light..."

We began 2024 in Palm Springs in a beautiful condo we rented for the winter. Three solid months, from mid-December until mid-March we’d be enjoying the beautiful sunshine, mountains, and good friends that the area offered us. I was a bit concerned at first as to how we’d fill so much time. I was teaching three online only courses at DePaul. All of my lectures were pre-recorded so I basically had to grade assignments and answer emails from Palm Springs. Yes, it was a pretty sweet existence. That still left a lot of time for us to do some riding on our e-bikes and hiking. Most especially it left us a lot of time to spend with the many people who chose to visit us. Frank and I had decided that we were not going to allow visitors to stay with us as we had two bedrooms and were basically using them for ourselves. Anyone who came would have to make their own arrangements.

This ended up not being an issue. In February, my long-time UIC friends Mike and Fran rented a place in town as did Natalie and Christine. During these long trips to Palm Springs, Frank would typically fly back home to judge speech tournaments for about ten days. This particular “gang” was there mostly during the time Frank was gone. Fran, Mike, Frank, and I had formed a movie club with their friends Jill and Neil who were also from Chicago vacationing for the weekend. Once Natalie and Christine arrived we’d enjoy some great dinners out and some hiking, especially on one magical trip to Joshua Tree where I saw sights I had not seen there before.

Christine, Natalie, Me, Mike, & Fran

Christine and I at Joshua Tree

One day when Natalie, Christine, and I were relaxing in the hot tub, we started reminiscing about our younger days in college and our subsequent jobs. Because they both had known me for so long, the topic of my annual Top Ten lists and the stories associated with those songs came up. Christine suggested that I share my stories on Substack. I said, “What’s Substack?!” Once I explored it, my life in 2024 changed for good. It was late that winter when I began telling my stories, which I had mostly already written as a memoir, in installments on the Substack website.

I soon realized what a great release this was going to be. Not only did I share the text but I included photos and videos from my entire life to provide visuals to the story. Once Frank and I got back home after our winter in Palm Springs I began to comb through everything I had at home, year by year. Because I had inherited all of my mother’s home movies and photos I had a LOT to work with.

The band Real Estate released it’s appropriately titled album Daniel during the year. It’s initial release was a song called Flowers which seemed to reflect everything I was doing during my Top Ten memoir journey:

“I'm gathering material and holding it to the light

Flowers inside my head
Everywhere all of the time
My eyes are turning red
Always with you on my mind”

I publicly revealed a LOT and had no idea how emotional getting back into the headspace of several of those years would be AND how many people would connect with my story. The material I held up to the light included hours and hours of home video footage as well as photos that captured the many people who have entered my life over the years. As I’d go through each year I’d think about the many that have left my life either by choice or death. These include names like Stevie, Dave, John, Mauro, Mike, Lee, Sharman, and of course my mom. They all made my eyes turn red when I thought about the flowers they brought into my life and how they remain on my mind.

I became committed to getting it right, without offending anyone. I also joined the National Association of Memoir Writers so that I could attend its various online seminars. Perhaps the most special surprise from this journey was meeting via Zoom every other week with a group of fellow music Substack writers AND gaining an increasing number of subscribers that seemed interested in my memoir as well as my film reviews which I also posted on a regular basis.

This was the outlet I’d been looking for for many, many years and it became fulfilling to no end. THIS was what I wanted to spend my remaining years doing: writing. I had always wanted to write more about film and I had a knack for writing some pretty good stories back before and during high school.

Coincidently, 2024 also became the year when I got to see many of my old friends that I’d not seen in quite some time. On our way back from Palm Springs we had dinner with my old Oak Park neighbor Irene. She and her cousin Stevie had a major impact on me during those early years. It was an emotional thrill to get to spend some time with her for the first time in 40 years.

Irene and I in Tulsa

The same occurred when, from the same neighborhood, I got to have dinner with my friends Paula and Lois after not seeing them for over 40 years. Paula was in from Texas and Lois, it turns out, lived less then 10 minutes from me! What a joyous reunion!

Frank, Lois, Paula, and I

Frank and I even got to spend a memorable night with my old friend Cathy from North Central College. She had been the highlight of that four year job back in the 90s. We always had each other’s backs and always could laugh at all that frustrated us. It was like no time had passed when we got together with her husband Kevin during the fall.

That Spring I made the decision to retire from DePaul in March of 2025. I’d had a rough term with students that I felt more distant from then ever. Their seeming lack of interest during classes and between each other made me feel I had entered a time when the life I grew up and was educated in no longer applied. Their references and communication abilities were foreign to me. I was done with being in the classroom. During the Fall I went back to teaching a couple more courses online as I worked with a financial adviser to plan the income for the rest of my life.

During the summer, Frank, Jeff, Lauren, and I headed to Portugal for a ten-day cruise of the Western Mediterranean. Hitting ports in the south of Spain, France, as well as a few islands and Northern Italy it was another intensive and beautiful experience. We then spent six more days in the Portugal cities of Porto and Lisbon. The meals were delicious and the port wine was to die for!

Later in the year we spent time with my old UIC friend Bernie (and major supporter of my Substack work!) and her partner Phil in New Mexico before their major move to Lisbon.

My Top Ten of 2024:

1. The End of the Contender – Everything Everything

2. Andrew – Ben Platt

3. Sugar on My Tongue – Tommy Newport

4. Midnight Ride – Orville Peck, Kylie Minogue, & Diplo

5. Flowers – Real Estate

6. Lost in Space – Foster the People

7. Set My Heart on Fire – Lauren Watkins & Sheryl Crow

8. Confide in Me – Melissa Manchester

9. Spirit in My Heart – Lenny Kravitz

10. Brain Freeze – Everyone Says Hi

Musically, some of the tunes that hit me the most were those that had a certain, not surprisingly, nostalgic feel and sound to them.

I’ve been a big fan of Manchester’s since the 1970s so I’m always thrilled when she releases something new. Early in the year, she finally released the album she had been working on since the pandemic in which she re-made some of her most famous songs. Confide in Me is one that she had never recorded before. What a treat it was! The production and arrangement are both quite elegant and Manchester’s voice still sounds as powerful as ever. I also like the sentiment. I love it when people confide in me – as long as their side doesn’t become the sole focus of our relationship! The video for the song is also beautiful and romantic. At the end of the year, when revealing my Top Ten on Facebook and Substack, I noticed a thrilling message on her Facebook account acknowledging her placement in my list!

Tommy Newport is another artist I was unfamiliar with when I first heard Sugar on My Tongue. I also didn’t realize that this was a cover of a Talking Heads’ song from the bonus version of their 1977 debut album. I’ve never dived too deeply into the Talking Heads as their music was played so constantly at the straight parties I attended in college that I got sick of them until the Stop Making Sense era ended.

Newport was born under the name Oliver Milmine in Manchester, England before moving with his family to the U.S. when he was six years old. The opening chords of Sugar on My Tongue initially remind me of Stealer’s Wheel’s classic Stuck in the Middle with You before venturing into clear Talking Heads territory in sound and vocal. When I hear the lyrics I think about the beautiful neighbors I have that show me plenty of love and sugar!

“She's my neighbor, fill my cup
I'll bet you, baby, she can fill it up
She'll put the sugar on my tongue
Will she gimme, gimme, gimme some?
Is she gonna put sugar on my tongue?”

This is catchy, fun pop/rock at its best!

Frank and I with my sister Judy and our incredible neighbors, July 2024

As I went through writing about each year in this memoir those boys that held a special place in my heart when I was young really tugged at me. So, in the spring when Broadway star Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hanson) released the song Andrew I was immediately touched by it. There are very few songs that truly capture what it’s like to be gay as a teenager, to be attracted to another boy, and to have no one to talk about it with. Platt beautifully describes all of those feelings in Andrew. This is the opening of the song:

“His hair falls in cool careless waves without tryin'
Goes days without cryin'
But still treats me kind
And it's not his fault, all the sleep I've been losin'
The way that I'm ruined

One look in his eyes and I'm gone
Helplessly dumb
My senses go numb
My brain is on fire
They say wanting someone is supposed to be fun
That's because they never loved an Andrew

Those lines say it all. Platt expresses them with a deep remembrance of yearning that I find hard not to relate to.

Other favorite artists also had some great tunes out in 2024:

The last time Lenny Kravitz made my Top Ten was with his song Ride which was my number one of the year in 2020, thanks to the pandemic. I dedicated it to my husband Frank. We definitely rode through that period and, for as much time as we spend together at home now, we’re probably doing better than ever. So, when Kravitz released his album Blue Electric Light, earlier in the year I looked for some equally emotional tracks. Spirit in My Heart is another searing and well-constructed rock ballad with some deeply personal lines:

“You bring out the best in me
I love you endlessly
You are the spirit in my heart
I was blind, but now I see
That you were right in front of me
You are the spirit in my heart”

Frank and I in Portofino, Italy, July 2024

Those that have been following my annual Top Tens will note that Foster the People have been a staple in my lists for over ten years. (Although not, ironically with their biggest hit, Pumped Up Kicks.) Their 2024 album Paradise State of Mind was a big disappointment for me. Lost in Space was the first single release and it grabbed me quickly with its disco-tinged sound and beat. None of the other songs on the album did much for me but this one I found endlessly catchy (a common theme for songs to make my Top Ten!) This one could have been played on the dance floors during the disco era with its pounding beat and string section. Plus, how could one not relate to the universal emotion of feeling lost when a loved one is gone? I love the energy of the production and the video is not bad either!

I wasn’t familiar with Lauren Watkins before this song but it captured my eyes on Spotify when I saw that it was partially a duet with Sheryl Crow (always a plus.) Watkins is a 24 year old, Nashville-born country singer. Some of her other songs sound a bit like Kacey Musgraves (who I also really like.) Yet, this one is more upbeat with a catchy chorus and some provocative lyrics:

“Wish I could set my heart on fire
If I had kerosene and matches
There'd be nothin' left but ashes
Ain't no smoke blowing liar
Could get his hands on it to hurt me
I'd rather be the one to burn me
It'd be easy to fall in love
But it'd be wiser to set my heart on fire”

Watkins doesn’t seem to mind pointing out her own faults and dark desires on many of her songs. This one I found instantly enjoyable like some of the best country songs can be.

Everyone Says Hi is a band made up of members from, among other groups, Kaiser Chiefs (who had my number one song of 2019, Wait), The Kooks, and, The Dead 60s. The group’s name was indirectly inspired by a 2002 David Bowie song (which made at least one Top Ten group member’s Ten that year.) Brain Freeze is about a broken relationship where “you want it all and so do I.” While I don’t specifically relate to the lyrics I can respect and understand the sentiment. I also love the line, “I'll call you from my fantasy, I can't live in your galaxy.” What stands out to me more is the production. Starting slow and quite beautiful, the song eventually moves into a chorus that is big and brassy – something I love that is rarely heard in pop/rock music today. There’s also a great climactic bridge and big finish that pulls all the pieces and emotions together.

Disguised, gay artist Orville Peck released a pretty great album earlier this year that featured duets with some pretty famous people. Neither Peck, Minogue, or Diplo ever made my Top Ten before but this track was just too irresistible. First off there is Peck’s bass-baritone voice, which is emotional and very cowboy masculine. He does a lot of country music that really highlights it. This song though is big and full of pop energy. With Minogue taking a verse and then harmonizing with Peck, it’s the perfect gay man/female icon combo. The lyrics are sexy and romantic:

“Let me take you on a midnight ride
Baby, you and I
Ooh, so much we could explore
Pull me closer under moonlit skies
Fire in your eyes
Ooh, you got me burning”

The beat and arrangement are infectious and the video…well, does it get any hotter?!

Finally, my number one song of 2024 was by the band Everything Everything: The End of the Contender. There are some songs with lyrics that on the surface seem almost indecipherable and yet possess raw emotion that connects in some very personal way with something deep inside me. The End of the Contender is one of those songs. I never spent a lot of time thinking about the lyrics to this tune about a boxer who has succumbed to the lure of making big money.

“It's all about the money now
You put the hard drive in the microwave
You antelope, you are a sack of wine”

I don’t quite get it… Everything Everything band member Jonathan Higgs told The NME that “since MeToo, cancel culture, whatever you want to call it has come in, there’s a whole generation of people, particularly men, who just don’t know what the hell’s going on and a lot of them are quite angry about it.” So, maybe not quite getting the lyrics is the point or maybe it explains the people who re-elected Trump. Somebody or something must hold the answers. I don’t get that but some people do.

What does make sense is the beauty of Higgs’s wide vocal range and, in particular, his falsetto. There is something that hits me when I hear him sing lines such as, “blame it on the empire, I don’t know” and “it’s all about the Benjamins, it’s all about the wilderness for me.” His emotion and crying out touches a piece of my soul. That’s the only way I can describe it. In addition, the production, arrangement, and build all really work for something deep inside me.

Also, as I finish up this memoir I’ve been more than thrilled by the response to so much that I have written about my life as well as the music that has accompanied it. I’ve always found a need to express myself in some form. I began and ended 2024 in Palm Springs, California composing major chunks of my story. The fact that so many people have reached out to me about it suggests that I am no longer a contender in my various writing endeavors but have finally reached a level which touches people beyond my friends and family.

Thank you all for reading. More to come!

Links to my Top Ten of 2024:

Apple Music

Spotify

Other favorites from 2024:

Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come - The Wombats, This Heart is Occupied - Guster, Algorithms - Kasabian, Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting – Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Rhinestone Cowboy – Orville Peck, TJ Osborne, Waylon Payne, & Fancy Hagood, Where We Belong – Cobi, Market Street – Real Estate, Human – Lenny Kravitz, Perfect Me – Blossoms, Takes One to Know One – The Beaches

What were your favorites in 2024?