There is something about The Human League — something especially special about Don’t You Want Me. I swear, I can listen to it over and over again and never get sick of it. I’m doing just that now, sitting in the little room, wishing the world would go away, but not literally like in those terrifying nuclear war videos they show us at school.
I don’t want to think about that so I turn the music up another notch. I don’t want to think about much of anything these days. I go to school, come home, do homework, listen to music in the little room, go to sleep, wake up, do it all again. Laurie keeps bugging me to come for a sleepover, but I’m not in the mood. And now my parents are all whispery around me and acting weird. My Mom keeps asking why I’m not talking on the phone or hanging out with Kevin or Laurie. She says she’s worried which is pretty hypocritical since she was always complaining that I was on the phone too much. You’d think she’d be happy.
Don’t You Want Me may be the perfect song. It’s catchy. It’s from a British band so I can forgive the whole Top 40 thing. You can dance to it. And the lyrics, when you really stop and listen, are totally true. It’s over with Mark forever. Kevin and I aren’t speaking. Laurie is always obsessing about Shane. Nobody wants me. It’s time to move on.
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Image: The Human League, MTV: Who’s Who in Rock Video, Zomba Books, 1983.
Welcome to the Little Room is a series of 250-word re-imagined vignettes from my ’80s youth with a focus on music and style. It appears weekly on periodicult.com.
