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A blast from the past
Oct. 12th, 2008 03:59 amGod, listening to this song makes me so nostalgic. It reminds me so much of one summer when I was...god, I must have been like 9, since Aladdin came out in the holiday season of 1992 and I got the soundtrack on cassette for Christmas that year from my dad. Anyway, I played that soundtrack pretty much nonstop for like six months, to the point that my mom and stepdad bought me a Walkman because they were tired of hearing this album over...and over...and over...
I totally haven't changed at all; even now, when I really like a song or an album, my immediate reaction is "I want to hear it on repeat ELEVENTY-BILLION TIMES until I get sick of it!"
Anyway, I always associate the Aladdin soundtrack, and specifically this song, with the book Dragon on a Pedestal, by Piers Anthony (part of his Xanth series, which I know from IRC discussions was an integral part of some of y'all's childhoods as well). See, I was HUGELY into Piers Anthony's books at this time in my life (and was for another probably two or three years more), but I didn't own very many of them, and of the few I did own this was by far my favorite. See, not only did it have the (what at that point seemed) delightful puns, but it had a kid (a little girl) as the main character, who went around having adventures with another kid (a slightly older boy) and a baby dragon, and also there were big fights and Greek mythology and all kinds of fun stuff.
Also looking back, there was some questionable stuff, like the fact that the other main character - Irene, the mom of the young girl - pretty much spent most of the second half of the book wearing nothing below the waist but a pair of panties, and frequent attention was drawn to her sexy legs; also the twentysomething who's totally into her as a MILF before the word existed ends up hooking up with a zombie, and, well, necrophilia kind of becomes an issue.
And let's not even get into the fact that I did a book report on this book that fall, with a posterboard illustration of panty-clad Irene climbing a vine (in my defense, it WAS a pivotal scene, and I illustrated it accurately!), and I think I included a picture of a naked Maenad as well (also integral to the plot!)...let's just say that there was a reason everyone in my grade-school class thought I was mildly pervy and sex-obsessed (and in 7th grade there was an actual in-class intervention of sorts, which was horribly embarrassing at the time but highly amusing in retrospect, and which I imagine I will talk about some other time), but it's not my fault Piers Anthony had so many naked and nearly-naked characters in his books for me to illustrate! Also sometimes they ended up on the covers, which got some of his books taken away from me by teachers because apparently it was inappropriate to have a cover with a naked person on it, even if they didn't show any important bits. Needless to say, this didn't stop me from bringing more in, and getting my mom to raise hell to get my books back. (I was such a trial to my inner-city, Catholic grade school.)
But ANYWAY, I loved the fuck out of this book, and read the fuck out of it as well that summer; literally, I probably reread the entire thing every few days, with the dulcet strains of the Aladdin soundtrack blasting in my ears as I did so. Even now, though I've maybe reread it once in the past ten years, I can remember pretty much every plot detail, even small details of phrasing, etc. And so now I have a Pavlovian reflex every time I hear this song; it makes me think of Dragon on a Pedestal, and similarly the few times I've reread that book since I grew out of Piers Anthony, it makes me want to listen to the Aladdin soundtrack in general and "A Whole New World" in particular.
I totally haven't changed at all; even now, when I really like a song or an album, my immediate reaction is "I want to hear it on repeat ELEVENTY-BILLION TIMES until I get sick of it!"
Anyway, I always associate the Aladdin soundtrack, and specifically this song, with the book Dragon on a Pedestal, by Piers Anthony (part of his Xanth series, which I know from IRC discussions was an integral part of some of y'all's childhoods as well). See, I was HUGELY into Piers Anthony's books at this time in my life (and was for another probably two or three years more), but I didn't own very many of them, and of the few I did own this was by far my favorite. See, not only did it have the (what at that point seemed) delightful puns, but it had a kid (a little girl) as the main character, who went around having adventures with another kid (a slightly older boy) and a baby dragon, and also there were big fights and Greek mythology and all kinds of fun stuff.
Also looking back, there was some questionable stuff, like the fact that the other main character - Irene, the mom of the young girl - pretty much spent most of the second half of the book wearing nothing below the waist but a pair of panties, and frequent attention was drawn to her sexy legs; also the twentysomething who's totally into her as a MILF before the word existed ends up hooking up with a zombie, and, well, necrophilia kind of becomes an issue.
And let's not even get into the fact that I did a book report on this book that fall, with a posterboard illustration of panty-clad Irene climbing a vine (in my defense, it WAS a pivotal scene, and I illustrated it accurately!), and I think I included a picture of a naked Maenad as well (also integral to the plot!)...let's just say that there was a reason everyone in my grade-school class thought I was mildly pervy and sex-obsessed (and in 7th grade there was an actual in-class intervention of sorts, which was horribly embarrassing at the time but highly amusing in retrospect, and which I imagine I will talk about some other time), but it's not my fault Piers Anthony had so many naked and nearly-naked characters in his books for me to illustrate! Also sometimes they ended up on the covers, which got some of his books taken away from me by teachers because apparently it was inappropriate to have a cover with a naked person on it, even if they didn't show any important bits. Needless to say, this didn't stop me from bringing more in, and getting my mom to raise hell to get my books back. (I was such a trial to my inner-city, Catholic grade school.)
But ANYWAY, I loved the fuck out of this book, and read the fuck out of it as well that summer; literally, I probably reread the entire thing every few days, with the dulcet strains of the Aladdin soundtrack blasting in my ears as I did so. Even now, though I've maybe reread it once in the past ten years, I can remember pretty much every plot detail, even small details of phrasing, etc. And so now I have a Pavlovian reflex every time I hear this song; it makes me think of Dragon on a Pedestal, and similarly the few times I've reread that book since I grew out of Piers Anthony, it makes me want to listen to the Aladdin soundtrack in general and "A Whole New World" in particular.
