I'm On A Boat

One of my favorite things about television and movies is their ability to play the most appropriate song for what is going on in any particular scene. For example, the scene in Love Actually where Keira Knightley figures out that her hubby’s best friend is in love with her and the Dido song comes on? Perfect. Sometimes I wish someone would make my life into a TV show just so some audio guys could follow me around with mood setting and/or mood appropriate music. Unfortunately no one has deemed my life interesting enough for such treatment yet.

Luckily Apple came along and invented the iPod, negating the need for my own personal sound entourage. Now I just have to flip through a couple thousand songs to find the most appropriate one for the day. A person needs different theme songs during their life to enhance events, big or small. For example, recent events in my life led me to making the All-American Rejects “Gives You Hell” my own personal anthem. It’s very cathartic to have a song to represent your feelings in various situations. I think this is why P!nk’s recent album is such a huge hit. The songs are all about her light switch relationship with her hubby and all of us can relate to what she’s singing about. Because it really is all your fault. Well said P!nk.

While my personal theme song changes often (you know, the one that would be the opening for my TV show), every now and again a song comes along that epitomizes an event so well that every time that song comes on it bring back the memories. Green Day’s “Good Riddance” reminds me of the end of high school. I love the songs that remind you of happy and fun times or major events. Like driving with the windows down in the summer on Little Beaver Creek Road singing along to " . . . Baby One More Time" or "No Scrubs."

Summer ’09 has blessed us with one of the best theme songs in a while. Since I was using some of my vacation days to spend time with friends on a houseboat on Lake Shatsa, The Lonely Islands “I’m on a boat” fit the bill perfectly. Not only was the song played about a million times during the adventure, but you’d catch people singing or humming it under their breath as well. Because hello, we were on a boat!

Another friend and I even went so far as to try and teach the two-year old on the boat the lyrics. Don’t worry, we used the clean version. Plus he really only knows the word boat so this is how it usually went down:
M&H: “I’m on a boat!”
J: “BOAT!”
Three days into the trip his mom finally figured out exactly what song we were trying to teach him. Luckily she didn’t listen to the rest of the lyrics too closely.

Forevermore “I’m on a Boat!” will be the Shasta theme song. Ten years from now I’ll be driving down the road and when that song comes on the radio (the non-explicit version of course) I’ll remember those few fun days in the sun when we really were on a boat. Where I got up on a wake board for the first time, how we remembered the Beaver flags and decorative lights but forgot soap and salt & pepper shakers, getting beaten down by a natural waterslide, waking up to Mia screaming bloody murder and spending hours in the lake on our floaties and floating cooler.

“Take a good look at me ‘cause I’m sailing on a boat . . .”