THE “VROOM VROOM” SONG

365 Days of Thanksliving — Day 250

Oh my stars, y’all. This morning, I got distracted with the distraction of distractions… with, of all things, the “vroom vroom” song. You scratching your head yet? I was too. Hang with me for a bit. This is a light and silly one to close out your Friday.

Typical Friday morning: I fixed breakfast for the pups, then the wifey and me, and trekked upstairs to begin my sermonizing routine. As I often do, I already had the PC fired up and ready to start studying, exegeting, and diagramming Sunday’s text. (It’s a pastor thing, just go with it). As usual, I had to jam out to some tunage.

I put on my headphones, opened Spotify, and clicked on some 80s mix. Within minutes, I was harmonizing along, pretending I was on stage with my favorite 80s icons. Before I knew it, I was diagramming away and serenading my wife (whose office is directly downstairs). Yah, she SO appreciates my dog-howling. She’d rather I not. But… I’m still so in love…. Hahahaha. I digress.

Anywho, sometime, oh, around 10:30 (because I went back and looked at my Google search history like a true nerd), this song starts playing. Now truly, I don’t recall what that song actually was. I guess it really doesn’t matter. But, something in that track triggered a 40-year memory of another song.

All I remembered, y’all, was a song with the unmistakable sound of a car engine revving, or something very similar. I couldn’t get it out of my head. It was right there on the tip of my memory, but what was it? Instantly, I was distracted, completely setting aside my sermon.

What was that song? Nothing else mattered in that moment. The squirrel had gotten ahold of me, and it wasn’t letting go. Shnikees… I thought.

Suddenly, the seventeen-year-old, zit-faced boy in me — the one who was totally head-over-heels for his girl — snapped back into focus. He was staring back at me in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. See, every morning in the summer of ‘86, I’d get up, open the cassette tray on my boombox, flip over the mixtape, and depress “play.”

The music started. Click. Vroom, vroom.… Vroom, then the sound of tires squealing and peeling out. Cue the music. But what was that song? I still couldn’t remember.

I remember how dorky I was back then, and how totally in love with my girl—the one, ironically, I’d hardly spent any time with yet. But I was so head-over-heels, she’s all I could think about. And to make it worse, she’d given me this most amazing gift: a mixtape of her favorite songs. See, it wasn’t the song that was important, it’s the one who put the song in my head: the girl who’d later become my wife, who was currently working one floor beneath me.

Kid you not, for the next hour I searched and searched and searched. I enlisted Big Brother Google.

10:33 am: “Christian pop songs of the mid-eighties that begin with the sound of a car engine starting.”

Bless Google’s algorithmic little heart, but the search engine wasn’t even a glimmer in its daddy’s eyes when that song came out. It handed me some asinine answer I knew was wrong. I tried again.

10:34 am: “Christian artist song in the 1980's that began with the sound of an engine revving.”

10:35 am: “Who were the biggest Christian artists and bands of the mid 1980's?”

Google confidently replied: The biggest Christian artists and bands of the mid-1980s included pop superstar Amy Grant, arena-rock pioneers Petra, singer-songwriter Michael W. Smith, vocal powerhouse Sandi Patty, and veteran pop-gospel group The Imperials.

I knew darn well she wasn't listening to Petra, and heaven forbid Sandi Patty or the Imperials. On the tape were songs by Smith, Grant, White (something or another), and a host of others… OMGosh, who was it? None of those artists, at first, sounded right, except perhaps Amy Grant.

10:59 am — told ya I was obsessed — one more query: “did any Amy Grant songs begin with the sound of an engine noise?”

This time I brought in the heavy hitter. The internet's new darling toddler: Google Gemini (AI). Unfortunately, even with all the artificial intelligence in the known universe, "G" didn’t know the answer either. He confidently spat out this utter refuse: “No, there are no known Amy Grant songs that begin with the sound of a revving or idling engine.”

 WRONG! You might know quantum physics, G, but you clearly don't know mid-80s cassette tape intros. I was thinking… it was Amy Grant. It had to be her. Dani loved Amy Grant’s music back then… and stylistically, Amy Grant fit perfectly.

One by one, album by album starting back from 1986, I started clicking on every Amy Grant song… and then, I heard it. The memory, the exact sound I hadn’t heard in 40 years was filling my ears. It was her 1986 title, “I Love You”: a song so ridiculously fitting for two teenagers in total puppy love.

Over and over, I listened to that song with tears flowing down my eyes. For the song wasn’t about that summer (so much), it was about the girl who loved on me in ways I couldn’t imagine. She was the girl I fell totally and insanely head-over-heels for… and as I said earlier, she was sitting one floor below, still the girl of my dreams.

I don’t know why that memory triggered today, but I’m sure glad it did. I guess I have God (and perhaps the Spotify algorithm) to thank. While my distraction of distractions chomped into my productivity, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Thank you, God, for the memory trip, and the reminder of not only your love for us, but how two kids could madly love one another … for forty years without end.

So…. what are you thankful for today?