Friday, May 24, 2013

Musical Motivation...Donna Summer


I've been struggling to get into my Friday Musical Motivations a bit the last few weeks, probably because I've been working every Saturday.  This week, although I am still working tomorrow, I have a disco party to look forward to Saturday night.

Today, after being woken up by the cat at 1:10AM and actually GETTING UP to feed him because I thought it was 6:30, I was feeling a little less than fresh. It might have been the lack of sleep, all this overtime or disco on the brain, but while I was soaking my troubles away in the shower, Donna Summer's She Works Hard For The Money popped into my head.

This beloved classic first came into my life when I got my driver's licence. I had a red 1980 Escort named Effie and I'd drive around in her listening to an amazing cassette tape of my mother's called Number 1 Ladies of the 80s (which naturally included Donna). Effie was my pride and joy, lovingly decorated with an assortment of beanie babies, nodding dashboard dogs and even a plastic chop.

She did have a few issues though. The fuel guage didn't work, she couldn't start in the cold and dead leaves often blew out of the air vents. There was also the time my Dad installed extremely large speakers in the doors only to discover they blocked the path of the window winders. Ever the home handy man, his solution was to cut the winders in half and screw one piece on top of the other, so the winders themselves were no more than 10cm long. To add to the difficulty of using winders designed for little people, Dad failed to file down the corners of the metal, so with each wind was like running your hand over a cheese grater. It made the drive through an interesting experience, especially when I handed over my bloodied 30cents for an icecream cone. I ate a lot of McDonalds in those days.

I'd give anything to have been an outsider looking in on the platinum blonde teen, driving her ancient car dressed in a faux fur coat with HUGE gold hoops, singing her heart out to Donna Summer. I really was a teen in the wrong decade.

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