Home of the Soul Cookie

Music has played an important role in my life, though not necessarily in an OCD, High Fidelity kind of way. For me, certain tracks will always evoke very distinct memories and images, some good, some bad, some just strange.

I’ve already touched on this phenomenon a few times ^[1][2][3], but I’ve long wanted to give it a more thorough treatment.

With that in mind, I’m introducing a new semi-regular feature to the blog, Soundtrack of My Life, in which I’ll share some of the songs of the defining moments of my life.

Song: “Mary” [6:26]
Artist: Oingo Boingo (as “Boingo”)
Album: Boingo (1994)

Backstory: I met and got to know Courtney (the woman that would eventually be first my wife, then my ex-wife) the summer after I graduated high school. After a tentative beginning, we started dating. A year into it, she moved out to Toledo with her folks. I followed.

Within a month of touching down, I was working at Best Buy, and when a second store opened in town, Courtney got hired on there.

We got the opportunity to move to the Cleveland market and help open those stores in late 1994, and moved out to Elyria, on the outskirts of the greater Cleveland area, where my store was. (Courtney worked at the North Olmsted store.)

Memory: We had just one car between us, so I spent a lot of time shuttling between Elyria and North Olmsted to pick Courtney up from work, or to drop her off.

Boingo was in the car’s tape deck almost every time I made that drive.

Even now, when any of the songs come up on a playlist in iTunes or on my iPod, I remember the snowy winter of 1994-1995. I remember making the transition from the turnpike onto the 480. I remember how miserable and isolated we felt out there. (My 1995 promotion and transfer back out to California was a godsend.)

“Mary” is an apt selection, I think, to illustrate the quiet melancholy of that winter.

Lyrics follow.

Lyrics:

Oh Mary was unhappy with the life that she led.
She was a simple girl without much to say.
So one day she up and left her dreary home,
And she left all her friends to wander all alone.
And at first she was afraid, she was so far away
From her home but slowly she got to like it anyway.
Oh Mary, won’t you please come…

Well, in time she found that mountain
That she had been taught her whole life
That she must avoid.
And though at first it hurt, and no one could comfort her,
She finally came to appreciate it.
And she liked it, she liked it.
Oh, wasn’t she surprised!
And though still alone, she grew so much inside.
Oh Mary won’t you please come…

And after a time, she became so sublime
She could look in people’s eyes and read their minds.
Though her hands would sometimes bleed, and occasionally
She would long for her past and the memories they’d bring.
She decided to return to her old hometown
And her heart was burning with all the things she’d found.
Oh Mary won’t you please come…
(Please come home…)

So, Mary came back and, at first, no one recognized her face,
And her friends were all a little bit afraid.
When they heard what she had to say,
They all slowly backed away,
And her family took her aside and put their arms around her.
They said, “Mary, won’t you please come back to us now?
“There is still time to repent for all your sins.”

And Mary started to cry when she realized
That she’d never come home again in her life.

Oh Mary, won’t you please come…
Mary won’t you please come…
Mary won’t you please come…
Please come home…