Gimme All Your Lovin'

This is another one of those posts that has nothing to do with yoga, I think. But in the spirit of Valentine's Day, a musing on those first subtle rumblings of sexual awakening as I recall them from my youth. Maybe that has something to do with yoga after all? Or at least with the yoga and sexual health book that I'm planning.

I was 12 years old. I was an MTV junkie. Now, I lived in a trailer in the middle of an orange grove outside the city limits, so we didn't have cable. In fact, I remember all of three channels. But I would have sold my soul to get access to MTV, and I watched it whenever I could - babysitting, at sleepovers at friends' places in town, on vacation, wherever I could. I would watch ANY video, even for songs that turned my stomach when they were on the radio (I'm looking at you, Bob Seger).

I looked it up, just to refresh my memory. There were some great songs that year. Billboard lists Let's Dance, Electric Avenue, She Blinded Me with Science, Sweet Dreams, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, Come on Eileen, Billie Jean, Little Red Corvette. Take a look. That was a great year for pop radio. But the song that is on my mind right now is Gimme All Your Lovin', by ZZ Top. ZZ Top had a number of their big videos that year, and they all featured this fairy godmother theme where the guys in the band would show up and help out the main characters, who were usually cute but not very well dressed. They dressed up the girl from She's Got Legs with baby ankle socks and high heels and gave her some gum and then she got the guy and defeated all the people who had sexually harassed her that morning on her way to pick up some sandwiches for the people she worked with. The band was only seen briefly, as most of the action was played out by some very 80's ladies and that awesome ride.

I was just watching Live From Daryl's House the other night, with guest musician Billy Gibbons (from ZZ Top), which is what brought this all back. Billy can sling that guitar, man (or slap the plank, as he calls it). If you don't watch the show, you should, because it is awesome. They did an amazing version of LaGrange. It's the only time that Daryl's voice has sounded out of place on the show, I think, contrasting against Billy's gruff, penetrating growl.

Now, enter in 12 year old me. I very literally consumed these songs, watching the videos over and over, taping the songs off of the radio when they came on and playing them over and over til I knew every note. And it was only when I came across Gimme All Your Lovin' that I started to feel a little ... different.

I enjoyed Duran Duran and Bowie at that time. They were safe and pretty and androgynous and did I mention pretty? But when I heard the men of ZZ Top growl at me and play those guitars so deftly and somehow kinda dirty, there was an awakening. It felt like those men, because they seemed so much older than the other boys on MTV, would know how to do things to me that were similarly dirty. And I had a feeling that I would like it. I couldn't quite gel the fact that they weren't pretty, and I was curious about how they were so not pretty and still were making me have this reaction.

I was an innocent, and I wouldn't really understand any of this for a very long time. But I do believe that was the start. Those guitars and that growl. And maybe the facial hair. I waited for The Eliminator to come and rescue me, to have the men of ZZ Top or their very 80's ladies give me ankle socks and high heels and gum and drive me away some where. That part didn't happen, but it was a great teenage segue from my childhood fantasies of a fairy godmother and her pumpkin coach.