Ghetto Love To You, Daniel Son

Leave it to spin class to make me feel old.  I am not talking about knee pain, muscle soreness or not being able to keep up with the peppy 20-something instructors.  As I frequently mention, spin class keeps me in check with new music.  Even if it isn't exactly my speed, it gives me a sense of being down with popular culture.  I am not the hippest of mamas, but I know more music than the average Whole Foods shopper.   So when Karl Wolf's "Ghetto Love," which samples Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love," played on the speakers at this morning's class, I was instantly reminded that my memory is going everywhere but up.

 

As long as you didn't live on some hippy commune or in Satmar Williamsburg, if you came of age in the United States during the 80s, you most likely recognize the familiar refrain "I am the man who will fight for your honor, I'll be the hero that you're dreaming of."  It was in a really popular movie that I saw a lot.  The problem was that I could not recall which one.  Or who sang it.  And I knew that I saw this movie many, many times over.  I kept knocking on my brain and no one answered.  I was sure that I slow-danced to this tune with my first boyfriend at a BBYO Beau-Sweetheart Dance.  I most likely cried many tears to it while listening on a Maxell II-S mix tape entitled "Rachel's Love Songs."  And yet, I.Could.Not.Remember.  Oy, I thought to myself, now I am really turning into my mother.

The thing that really got my goat was that none of the other women in spin class could place it either.  But for a different reason.  Not because their brains have been fried from working, cooking, cleaning, homework-checking, schedule-managing, and all the other stuff that comes along with parenting.  These women were obviously younger than me, and I realized that their lack of recognition was likely because they were still in diapers at the time of the debut of "Glory of Love."

As we were all toweling off at the end of class, one woman Shazamed it and reported that the original song was by the band Chicago.  Ah, this made sense to me.  It did, after all, SOUND like Chicago.  Thank God for Wikipedia to inform me later on that Peter Cetera released this song as a solo shortly after he left Chicago.

To the rescue came a guy who was spinning in the front row and whom I will call Daniel.  He was clearly closer to my generation than the young women I previously asked:

"Karate Kid, all the way," Daniel said.  Phew!  What relief!





But he didn't get it fully on-target.

Daniel Son, it was Karate Kid II.  Time for us Gen Xers to get a brain check.