Life is filled with pivotal moments, periods of time that change us in fundamental ways. Most of us don’t have many, but the ones we do have are indelibly part of our story. I’d guess, for most of us again, those moments are far more frequent in our teens and twenties than at any other period of our life.
I turned 20 years old in 1992 and it was a year of pivotal moments for me. I read Marx for the first time and got seriously into Chicano history. The L.A. riots flipped my sense of the world upside down. I studied abroad in England in the fall, my first time needing a passport and my second time on an airplane. I got my first email account.
Here are just five of the songs that I associate with this period in my life. There are many more, but these are all from 1992 and all occupy a soft spot in my heart.
5. “Kiko and the Lavender Moon” (Los Lobos)
Even though I had known Los Lobos for years, this song came from the first of their albums I ever bought, 1992’s Kiko. It’s a mystical album, folksie and spiritual, and the song is indicative of the whole. I was moved by the sound, the organ and the odd chords. It melded perfectly with where I was and who I was, with a nod to where I was from.
4. “Nuthin’ but a “G” Thang” (Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre)
It’s difficult to overestimate the significance of Dr. Dre’s debut solo album The Chronic. This song preceded the album’s December release by about a month. It was the first time I heard Snoop Doggy Dogg. All I can say is that it made an impact, seemingly with everyone.
3. “Galileo” (Indigo Girls)
I had friends who were Indigo Girls fans throughout my first two years of college. If not for the success of this song, the folk duo were the kind of sound I might never have encountered if not for college. This mainstream hit, however, made them unavoidable for my generation, and helped put them on regular play on my stereo.
2. “Tears in Heaven” (Eric Clapton)
I liked this song so much when I first heard it that I bought the soundtrack to the movie Rush, which is how the song–a love letter to Clapton’s son Connor, who died tragically at the age of 4–was first released. It was poignant and bittersweet. On January 16, 1992, Clapton performed it along with some of his classics and other songs as part of an acoustic “MTV Unplugged” concert. The concert would air later in March, result in a best-selling and Grammy-winning album later that summer, and signal the start of the next phase of Eric Clapton’s career. That acoustic version continues to be one of my favorite live performances of any song.
1. “That Feel” (Tom Waits)
Tom Waits was starting the third decade of his musical career when I discovered him. I never knew he existed before that and when he came to me it was like coming home. My first encounters with him where, simultaneously, a live 1974 recording (Nighthawks at the Diner) and 1992’s Bone Machine. This song, the final track to that album (which won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album, go figure…) is a duet with Keith Richards. It sounds about as beautiful as two drunk alley cats singing to themselves as they wallow in self-pity. It’s beautiful.
LATINO LIKE ME 