Cherry Bomb

That’s when a sport was a sport
And groovin’ was groovin’
And dancin’ meant everything
We were young and we were improvin’
Laughin’, laughin’ with our friends
Holdin’ hands meant somethin’, baby
Outside the club “Cherry Bomb”
Our hearts were really thumpin’
Say yeah yeah yeah
Say yeah yeah yeah

Mellencamp, John. “Cherry Bomb.” _The Lonesome Jubilee_. Mercury Records, 1987.

I used to hate this song. Hated it. God, it was on the radio all the time. I suppose my hatred had something to do with the time of its release: in 1987, I was 10 years old. Too young to understand what it meant, plus I couldn’t stand all of those country fiddle parts.

When I hear that song nowadays, my heart aches. Of course, it aches for what’s there on the surface - the loss of youth, of innocence. Dancing was everything. That was before things got complicated, in the world of relationships and everything else. I’ll tell you a secret, too. Until I looked up the lyrics for the purpose of posting this today, I thought he was saying “That’s when a smoke was a smoke” - you know, before the temptations of hard core drugs set in. (Not for me, of course. I just imagine John Cougar Mellencamp’s life to be so much more exciting than my own.)

More than the Glory Days stuff on the outside, though, my heart aches for the simplicity that’s there in his small town. It’s funny, but now that fiddle is part of what I love about this song. It makes me think of my home in the South, sitting on the back porch with a couple of good friends, drinking margaritas in plastic to-go cups and laughing about something stupid. That wasn’t high school for me. High school has its own glory days stories for me, but the good life set in after I’d moved away from Michigan and settled into my own fit. It happened after dancing was no longer everything and smokes were - well, let’s say there was more than one option. But things were simpler then. Slower, and easier to take.

I crave that simplicity every day now, as I sit in traffic for the hours to and from my job, as I worry over what Fun I should take in this weekend, as I feel so far away from the true connections in my life. Part of me wishes I’d learned to love this song a lot earlier. And then another part says: that’s what this time is for.

[I know, I kinda just jumped right in there. The blank page was killing me. I figure we can get to know each other over time, rather than giving you the whole back story at the beginning. Does that work for you?]