1o. Picture it: Toronto, 1983. My first music memory, other than French chansons we sang with my mother, is Donna Summer's "She Works Hard For The Money" from the album with the same title. --First record our dad brings home for me and my 5-year-old sister. Yellow cover. We bond over singing, and play it over and over again. Donna dons waitress clothes on the album; since then, I am eternally captivated with waitress and French maids' uniforms, which I become every Hallowe'en during which I lack preparation time or when I can't think of a better costume. Also the song "Unconditional Love." I ask what the word means and vow to have it.

9. Madonna's "Holiday"--The second record we are given. Still 1983. I am eight years old. My sister is still five, and sings every song with her lisp and inability to pronounce the letter "r" as anything other than "l." She candidly announces: "I want to fLee my soul."

8. Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough"--From his "Off the Wall" album, when he still had soul. My mother used to torture me and my sister by playing this on decibel ELEVEN on a Saturday morning when she decided we had slept enough, as a friendly wke-up gesture. A perennial wedding favourite: to this day, who doesn't get their ass back over to the dance floor as soon as this inimitable disco beat finds its way out of the speakers?

7. Wham's "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go": Released in the U.K. in June of 1984. Who can resist bopping to this one? We played it on a spool all the way to Wasaga Beach, 'til the tape "accidentally" got left out of its case and melted in the sunny car.

6. Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You"--It's still 1984, and his album The Woman in Red earned Stevie an Oscar for Best Song. As a child, I remember singing this with my nuclear family in our first car on the way to Florida's Disneyland. We ate a lot of clam chowder in New England on the way. I thought I saw a bear in the woods and no one believed me. Life was precious, and naivete was my reality.

5. George Michael's "I want your sex"--This time, we are driving on the way to a cottage my parents used to rent for a week in the summertime in Wasaga Beach. My mother singing this at the top of her lungs even though she couldn't quite understand the lyrics.

4. The Indigo Girls' "Closer To Fine"--This sober-sounding, guitar-heavy, refrain-repetitive ballad puts me in a strange mood, which is how I know it affects me. It gives me levity while reminding me of the Molson Amphitheatre concert I went to when drinking was illegal and some dreams still seemed possible.

3. Cyndi Lauper's "Best Of". Go ahead; pick a song, any song. From timeless classics that she penned like "Time After Time" covered by world-class Jazz greats like John Coltrane to that to the ubiquitous "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" to one of the most romantic songs, "I Drove All Night" to Starmania's calling card "The World Is Stone" (ever popular in France and Germany) Cyndi rocks...and her new album's not too shabby, either.

2. Ani diFranco's "32 Flavors": This gets a rank for empowering feminist lyrics, catchy melody, honey vocals, and hypnotic drumming.

1. The Beatles' "Octopus Garden". Under the sea...because we can't be (for extended periods of time, anyway).

- Canary

more top tens

I didn't copy. Take a look the Morning News Recollections and can you say "How cool am I?" Or how geeky.

"Hair" (song from the Broadway hit musical of the same name)
My father had just purchased a "hi-fi". My sister and I gathered around to watch my dad figure it out. He put a small black disc on a prong and pulled a wee lever,saying aloud "78? or 45?"...I guess he chose the wrong speed cause it played faster than we ever heard anything.

My sister and I laughed and laughed and screamed as my dad tryed to figure what the hell he did wrong. For years we would sing the song to each other(the fast version) and always laugh.

"Aquarius"
Whenever this song came on the radio I would sing along,and loudly. Whereupon my sis would punch me and anounce to everyone: "The only reason Kitty's singing this song is 'cause she's showing off and thinks she's so cool". Well, she was right.

...one more...

"Everything"...by REM
At the age of 25 I had developed a disdain for men; in that I wish they would all die. They had caused me so much pain...when I heard the lyrics of this beautiful song(esp.these lines):

Everything is beautiful
She is so beautiful
She is so young and old
She is so young and old
She lays there
With her teeth
in her mouth

I look at her
and all I see
Is the light of the sound of music
In this scene,
the stars are the greatest thing
you've ever seen
And their there for you
For you alone
You are the everything

I thought if a man could write these beautiful words to a woman they (men) can't all be bad. (Later I would find that Michael Stipe was a fag and these words were written to a young boy)...uck!

"Push It" by Salt n Pepa
Travelling thru Spain & Portugal when I was 25, I recall this tune being #1 on '"my" dance chart. Whenever I would hear it I would hit the dance floor with such fervor, that either I would gather a crowd of on lookers and oglers or, (in this case) start a small riot! I was in a night club in Lagos, Portugal that did not have a "night club" license. They had a "restaurant" license which means you can dance and drink and play ridiculously loud music all you want but you must have a table, set for dinner on the premises. So there was this packed dance floor; you couldn't get a spot for tryin' ...and in the middle of this chaos was a table set for 4. Table cloth, linen napkins, cutlery (salad forks too) wine glasses, water...flowers. "PUSH IT" comes on and Kitty (our hero) pushes her way on to the floor, and desperately vies for some "booty" space". She sees a clear spot in the middle of the room and claws her way there quickly, so as not to miss a beat of this sweet tune. She makes it to the center, and at the same time when she hears the line from the song; "Get up on this", she sees the table and the opportunity to get this party started...up she goes, with the help of the crowd onto the table set for 4. Balancing on this precarious stage, pumping her arm and chanting (screaming really) along with the song "GET UP ON THIS, GET UP ON THIS...AH PUSH IT... PPPPUSH IT". So 5 drunk chicks are on this platform and it's being pushed to and fro across the dance floor. Glasses and dishes crashing to the ground, cutlery flying and landing God knows where. The wee riot took a turn for the worse when I screamed at the top of my lungs "PUSH IT PORTUGAL"
The table couldn't take the stress....CRASH...all 5 of us came crumbling down like the world trade center. Ground zero, a sea of broken glass and broken girls... injuries?! Never mind! None of us missed a beat ...we kicked that table elsewhere and we're on our feet in no time helpin' Portugal to PUSH IT! ( I learned later; one of the girls cut her cheek open on the corner of the table. She got 5 very bad stiches on the center of her face. She was from T.O. and young and pretty and I told her she should go back to Canada and get her face taken care of...She said "aach...whatever...this is my "Push It" scar".

- Bitchin' memories from the mind of KLF.