Today I was strolling through fabulously bogan Northland, contemplating buying my very first pair of jeans in something like 12 years, when over the tinny and distant in-mall speaker system shot forth that gem of eighties melodrama pop - Heart's "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You".

I casually listened, took it in and soon enough I was recalling the lyrics, the music video (or at least isolated images from it), and began preempting the oh-so-sweet lyrical journey that the group were taking me on.

And then I was beside myself. In some kind of strange pop-nostalgia out of body experience, I began remembering how the big emotional reveal in the narrative of the song (yes, it's one of those 'story' songs, in case you don't know it) gave me shivers as a kid. Despite the fact that I was pre-pubescent and must have had some strange erotic thrill from such a tawdry tale, I also remember being deeply affected by the tone of this bit (it's like the pop song version of the Lifestyle cable channel or New Idea's reader 'confessions' pages):

Then it happened one day, we came round the same way
You can imagine his surprise when he saw his own eyes

It's taken me a while to allow myself that kind of joy at giving in to these orchestrated moments. As an enthusiastic undergrad in Cultural Studies and Film Theory I would find myself both in awe of and disgusted by the tools exploited to manipulate audiences in various ways (emotionally, ideologically). But now, I just have these moments when I let myself be pulled under and happily take huge lungfuls of that salty stuff.

So I'll try not to be too embarassed that I still got the echo of a shiver over this awful song...

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