Midterms, finals, papers, tests, quizzes, grade points, grad
school, med school, law school, career path, earnings potential,
pressure, pressure, stress, stress, stress.
Is it any wonder, as the end of the quarter approaches, that
more and more of UCLA’s 21-and-over population turns to
drink?
With enough booze, some good friends, and a few good songs, you
have nothing to worry about but getting that verse out louder than
your buddies can.
We all have our favorite drinking songs. These are the songs
that take us away from the oppression of the present. They are
nostalgic, sometimes sad. They are songs everyone knows the words
to, but haven’t thought of in years. They are the biggest
power ballads (Journey’s “Open Arms”), the
tightest old-school jams (Salt ‘n Pepa’s
“Shoop”), and the cheesiest arena-rock (Bon
Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer”). They are
songs that you wouldn’t admit to liking while sober, but are
really among your all-time favorites. Many are from the eighties
(“Jesse’s Girl,” “Wake Me Up Before You
Go-Go” and “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” to name
just a few).
Our favorite drinking songs are always the best songs to sing
loud, off-key, arms ’round your closest friends and the
nearest strangers, reveling in a kind of joy only found in shared
cultural experience and forty ounces of malt liquor.
I recall a night in an anonymous watering hole in the north. A
few too many shots of Jagermeister warming my ambition, I made my
way to the jukebox. I knew which song I was going to play, and my
quarters dropped before I saw its number (press 6502).
At the first swelling of the opening chords I grabbed one of my
friends and made my way to the end of the bar: we had a mission. We
alerted the first patrons there, (hands…) moved down to the next
(touching hands…) and onward down the bar (reaching
out…touching me…touch-ing yoooou). By the time I had reached
the chorus and my own group we had the whole place on board.
“Sweet Car-o-line. (Ba Ba Ba) Good times never seemed so
good!”
And that night, in that bar, singing Neil Diamond at the top of
my lungs with 25 strangers, my four best friends and a bartender
who didn’t know a word of English but belted it out with best
of them, the good times really had never seemed so good. We had
camaraderie and goodwill for our fellow man, and if you think a
single person present had his mind on anything but that beautiful
song, then brother, you’ve never been there.
So the next time that guy at your party won’t put down the
guitar, don’t get mad. Instead, say to him, hey my friend, I
think we could all use a round of “The Sweater Song.”
And who wouldn’t want to sing along with some
“Brown-Eyed Girl?” Before you know it, all your
troubles will be lying on the floor, lying on the floor, yes,
they’ve come undone.
E-mail Crossen at dcrossen@media.ucla.edu.