"The Imitation Of Life..."

Running through my head right now...

What I Like About This: When I was 11 or 12 years old, I remember this song being a huge summer hit for The Starland Vocal Band. I recall that the first few times I heard it, I didn't realize what it was actually about, but I loved the vocal harmonies and the rhythms and it became one of my favorite songs.  But I also remember that my father would always turn up the volume on the radio when this song played. I remember watching his fingers strum the steering wheel in time with the music and you could tell he really liked it. I heard it again a few years after it debuted, when I was maybe 16 years old and it was then that it hit me what the song is really about. Even more surprising to me as I listened to it again at 16 was that I realized why my dad liked it... 

My dad worked the afternoon shift and would usually leave for work around 2 p.m. In the summer months, we played outside most of the day, but if you happened to come inside, Mom and Dad were often no where to be found after lunch.  And on many a day, if you ventured upstairs, you'd find the door to Mom and Dad's bedroom closed and locked. I didn't think anything of it until that summer I turned 16, but as I then thought about it, it made me both happy and incredibly sad.  I remember realizing that I was glad that my parents apparently had a passionate love-life, but when I thought about myself as I listened to the song, I found it quite depressing... I believed that I was destined to be unhappy and alone for all of my life. I was gay, and I didn't believe that I'd ever know love or passion in my own life and so that song wasn't meant for me. It would be another 24 years after that realization at age 16, before I would find out what it felt like to know "Afternoon Delight."