Ever wonder why Wheel of Fortune contestants scream the letters they want Vanna to reveal? Do the producers of the show encourage this bizarre bit of business? If so, why? Or why do I call my blog Moodz4Modernz? I don’t have an answer to the first question, but I can tell you a little something about the second.
In 1979 I was 22 years old and selling clothes in some retail store at the mall in Richmond, Virginia. The “hip” stores would blast hip music to show how hip and youth oriented their merchandise was and to attract hip, young people into the store. I don’t even remember the name of the place but I’m certain it doesn’t exist anymore.
I was alone in the store that morning, folding sweaters and placing them on a table down front when it happened. I heard it once, that one day, that one time. This funky bass line and this funny bit of business with the Moog synthesizer and Funky Town-like guitar jangle. I didn’t understand a single word. I was blown away. You know, when a tune blows you away, you feel something serious is going on up in here. You’re overwhelmed with a need to just sit down. Everything starts to feel like it’s all happening in slow motion. It’s almost like being in love.
Somehow I learned the tune was by a punk rock band called Elvis Costello and The Attractions. I remember seeing a music video of this skinny white guy with oversized Buddy Holly like glasses, wearing a black suit with a white shirt and black tie, hopping about pigeon toed with a 50’s style mike to his mouth, knees pinned together like he needed to pee in the worst way but holding off until after he’d finished this performance.
When I finally got a real job and several years after my son was born in 1984, I started working on building my record collection. I would go around to record stores trying to find the tune. I didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t even have a word to go on so reading the playlist was no help. Listening stations didn’t come into fashion until the nineties.
Money was always too tight for me to make a mistake and wind up spending $14.00 for a CD and only like one song. For years, I only ever heard that song in my head and all I remembered was the little bit with the synthesizer and the guitar jangle. And whatever that was he was saying in the beginning.
Then on Sunday, May 18th, 2008, a date that will live in infamy, all that would change forever.
Hanging out in my local library one Sunday, I noticed a section in the middle of the library with several racks filled with CD’s. You know, I have spent countless hours in this library on numerous occasions before this day, and I never noticed the modest CD section there in the center of the library. You can check out CD’s at the library! This is something I never, ever did, ever in my life.
This day I approached the rack and began sort of tripping through the shelves. I came upon a few Elvis Costello CD’s:
When I was Cruel, 
King of America, and 
The Delivery Man. I listened to and loved all the tracks, but the tune rattling around in my head almost 30 years now was not on any of these CD’s. Then I got a brilliant idea. iTunes.
I searched Elvis Costello in the iTunes Store. I remembered that he was in a band called the Attractions. That helped to limit my search. 
The release dates were all wrong. There was nothing listed before 2007. I decided I would just have to listen to the sample clips of all the songs. I double clicked the first album cover image on the list: Armed Forces– and went down the line. I knew it as soon as I heard the intro.
My heart leapt, I actually cried. I couldn’t believe I was finally listening to the tune that literally blew me away nearly thirty years ago and had been occupying space in my memory ever since. I finally knew the name of the tune– Moods for Moderns.
I had a grand total $2.14 cents left to my name in my checking account. Remember, I became unemployed May 2 and I had no prospects for the future on Sunday, May 18th. All I knew is that I had to have this tune. I downloaded it into my iPhone that very minute.
On Monday, May 20th, Moodz4Modernz was born. I published my first post on May 20th.
Moods for moderns (4 X’s)
I get hit looking for a miss
I never thought that it would come to thisMoods For Moderns (4 X’s)
Though we may never be the same again
I am so proud that you’ve been taken in vain
What if none of your dreams come true?
I can never run from you
There’s never been a how d’you do
There’s never been an ending
Soon you’ll belong to someone else
And I will be your stranger just pretending
Moods for moderns
Memory lingers
I let you into
Foreign fingers
Moods For Moderns (4 X’s)
I never thought that would see the day
I never thought that I would give you away
What if none of your dreams come true?
I can never run from you
There’s never been a how d’you do
There’s never been an ending
Soon you’ll belong to someone else
And I will be your stranger just pretending
Moods for moderns
Let them break us
Strong and sudden
Foreign fingers
Fortuitous, huh? Think Elvis Costello would approve?
Moods for Moderns | 1979
