Music Monday #5: Power Ballads

A couple of weeks ago, La La over at Tales of a Charm City Chick wrote a post about power ballads. This is a woman speaking my language because I absolutely love songs where the singer is practically begging you to pull out a lighter and wave it in the air like you just don’t care. I asked her if I could steal use her idea for a Music Monday post, and she graciously agreed.

I tried to make a Top 10 list which turned into a Top 25 list which turned into a Top 500 list. I never realized how many power ballads I liked until I started writing this post. It started becoming a bit like asking a parent to name his/her favorite child, and unless you’re lucky enough to have a child like me, you just can’t do it.

So I’ve decided to take a different approach. I thought I’d pick a few power ballads that had a little more meaning to me, and share the stories behind the songs.

Journey – Open Arms

I am a great lover of Journey, but this song makes me want to hurl myself from a high place. It was the late 90’s, and I worked in a Hallmark store after school. Beanie babies were really popular at the time, and the store was filled with bored, bossy housewives who spent all of their free time collecting overpriced stuff animals. My job was to dust, straighten cards, arrange the display cases, and ring up customers. The store was slow on most days, and the only thing to help pass the time was the music on the stereo system. The last few months I worked there, this song came on the radio twice an hour, and I estimate I had to listen to that song a minimum of 750 times before I quit. It was enough to make a girl wish for death by paper cut.

Heart – Alone

I am rarely interested in someone, and you have a better chance at winning the lottery than getting me to fall in love with you. It’s not that I think I’m some special angel sent from dating heaven to make a man’s life better; rather, it’s strange wiring in my brain that prevents me from being commitment-minded. So imagine my surprise when I fell in love with someone I had just met. We barely spoke in the beginning, and all of our subsequent encounters were pleasant, but brief. Still, I was hopelessly and totally in love with this man. I couldn’t tell him how I felt because it just wasn’t good timing for either of us. My life was totally consumed by being in love with a person I couldn’t have, and there were times when I wished I had never met him. One day I heard this song on the radio, and almost fell to pieces because it made me think of him.

Poison – Every Rose Has Its Thorn

A friend of mine broke up with her boyfriend after she found out he was cheating on her with his ex-wife. She was completely devastated, and needless to say, she spent many months holed up in her apartment crying her eyes out over him. It got to the point where she wasn’t going to work regularly, had stopped hanging out with her friends, and every time I called her, or went over to her apartment, she was listening to this song. I drove over there one day with matches, a bucket, and some vodka. She opened the door and I said, “This has to stop. Now.” We drank way too much, accidentally broke a very expensive vase, listened to this song an ungodly amount of times, ripped a hole in my sweater, and burned a bunch of stuff her ex had left behind.  She was out on the town the very next weekend.

Mötley Crüe – Home Sweet Home

I have a bionic liver. I have never been hungover, and used to be famous for my ability to drink almost anyone under the table. On my 25th birthday, a group of friends and I met at a bar we frequented quite often at the time. It was one of those parties that starts out with a few people who invite a few people who invite a few people, and by the end of the night you don’t recognize any of your party guests. People were very generous, and kept buying me drink after drink after drink. I got completely obliterated, and stumbled to the restroom to have a quiet moment alone to collect myself. There were floor-to-ceiling mosaic tiles in the bathroom, and as I looked around while sitting on the can, it appeared the walls were swirling around and closing in on me. I completely freaked out, and ran out of there like I had just stolen something. In my haste, I almost clotheslined a guy who was hanging all over the jukebox, and singing this song at the top of his lungs. I have not had that much to drink since that night, and no, I was not hungover the next day.

I love the dramatic nature of power ballads, and I really do think you could soundtrack your entire life using only this type of song. So tell me my dearest Hooked on Tonics, which songs define certain moments in your lives?

Tags: every rose has its thorn poison, heart alone, journey open arms, music, music monday, power ballads, rock ballads