Music of the Day, 27 January 2024

spit shine my soul

Another very inspirational song in my past started playing on the radio station in my mind today, no doubt assisted by the recent excavation of “Bang Your Drum.” Its influence is older, and at the time was very specific.

Over the course of my relationship with my kids’ father, what started out as an equal partnership slid into me becoming essentially his housekeeper and primary parent to all his offspring. This was well after our romantic relationship had ended. I don’t want to get into the details;¹ I’ll just say that he took advantage of my desire to not break up the family more than necessary. Out of a fear of being a single parent,² I relinquished my spine and eventually, a lot of my independence. Today’s MotD came into my life courtesy of a dear friend who was going through a divorce.

At the time, the relevance of the lyrics to my personal situation flew right over my head. I had recently started training in shito-ryu karate at the dojo that my son and one of my stepkids had joined. I’d been interested in martial arts since high school, when another close friend and I had discussed aikido a fair bit. But things in my life had never coalesced to allow me to pursue it.

Truth be told, my finances weren’t in a sound enough position for me to start karate when I did—and I was approaching 50 and was overweight—but I did anyway. I needed something that was just for me. I loved myself for taking on all the challenges of the dojo’s martial arts practice. It was physically difficult for me; it was also quite taxing mentally. And I loved every minute of it.

My aforementioned friend was one of the most senior female practitioners in the dojo; as such, I looked up to her as a model of how to conduct myself in the dojo. She also taught me several of the basic blocks and kicks,³ and later, we frequently worked together in partner drills and sparring. That kick-started (sorry, I had to) our friendship.

When she realized that her marriage was irretrievably broken, we started hanging out more often outside of the dojo. Somewhere along the way, she shared Bif Naked’s “I Love Myself Today” with me.

It didn’t take me long to realize that the lessons I was learning in the dojo—perhaps the most important at the time being to claim your space⁴—applied outside it too. It took some time, but my spine regenerated, and I freed myself from that quietly abusive living arrangement.

“I Love Myself Today” is the perfect blend of hard rock and punk for me. It’s from Bif Naked’s 2001 album, Purge. I own it and its 1998 predecessor, I Bificus; I don’t think I got them from her, though.⁵ I know I’ve listened to Purge all the way through, but the titles haven’t sparked any other musical memories for me. Once I’ve finished my tasks for the day, I’ll be listening to it at the very least. I need more raw punk power right now, and I expect Bif Naked will deliver.

1. Especially since I know my perspective is different from his

2. Which is so silly in retrospect, since that’s what I was during those years, as his job required a lot of travel

3. At our dojo, the first month is a trial period, to see if the student and dojo are a good fit. During this time, the student participates in warmups and observes the class work on the basic kata. Then the sensei select an advanced student to work privately with the new student on a specific element; after the class ends, Sensei have the students “show their work”: the advanced student leads the newbie through a series of drills on what they’d been teaching. More students left during this first month than stayed with it.

4. Not just on the dojo floor, but in your life

5. They’re in .ogg format, which leads me to think a piratical friend shared them with me, which would have happened years before I started karate training