May Column Winner

Connect the Musical Dots

By Julie Talton, Counywide & Sun

“So sit back, relax, and strap on your seatbelt. You never been on a ride like this befo’. With a producer who can rap and control the maestro.” Dr. Dre may have rapped it, but I will be pulling this duty on our upcoming vacation!  We will be playing a musical road trip game to keep every-one engaged and pass the time on our trip to the west coast. Who better to start off our journey than the lyrical genius and west coast rapper, Dr. Dre?  Well, not everyone will agree with me here… but everyone in my vehicle will, and that’s what matters.

We are a music family. Not a musical family (because that would imply that we have a talent for making music… which we wholeheartedly do not)! However, we have a great appreciation for the art.  So much so, that we often challenge each other to “who sings it?”  Both daughters and I have a collection of band shirts, most of which we have seen in concert, some we only wish we had.  BUT, none of which we don’t know the songs credited to them.  My daughters have joined in on my pet peeve of people wearing clothing that they don’t understand. We aren’t jerks about it; if we don’t know you, we aren’t going to ask you to name a song AC/DC sings because you are wearing one of the hundreds of awesome band T’s they sell everywhere. My 11-year-old has several band/artist T’s and she is a fan of every one (Def Leppard, Whitney Houston, Kiss and AC/DC, to name a few).  My 19-year-old has the largest collection in the house, and I am not afraid to admit, a wider and more in-depth music appreciation.  Her record collection is one to be admired for sure (and has enough variety that almost any music lover can find something they fancy)!

Anyway, back to my road trip. This will be our third trip to Oregon as a family to visit family that relocated there. The other times, we drove the entire way there and back, detouring along the way to see big sites such as Yellowstone, the San Francisco Bridge, the Santa Monica Peer and Las Vegas to name a few.  This trip, we decided to take a plane for half the journey in the interest of saving time and money.  This still puts us in the car for over 30 hours round trip (less than half the time as before).

We will pass the time by playing “Connect the Musical Dots: Travel Edition.” No, you cannot find this in a store, I just made it up, with some inspiration from other games and something similar we did with our family COVID movie marathon. The rules are pretty simple… and somewhat left to interpretation (that everyone must agree to). We play a song to start off with (Nuthin’ but a “G” Thang) by Dr. Dre… then connect it with something else in some way (multiple options here). G Thang = “Gangstas Paradise” (Coolio) = “Paradise City” (Guns N Roses)… Then Guns N Roses could play again (inserting a second artist’s song back to back limit) with “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” From Heaven, we could link Prayer and play Jon Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer.” Then we could move to Madonna’s “Like A Prayer.” Then use the word “Like” to switch to Adelle’s “Someone Like You.”  You?  The options are practically endless… let’s go to “We will Rock You” by Queen. Queen can take us so many ways but I’ll go with a double play and use “Under Pressure.” Since Vanilla Ice stole that beat, we might as well turn it up with some “Ice Ice Baby!” After that, we may go hard left and use Vanilla as a cooking agent/flavor and move on to Def Leppard’s, “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” OR we could bypass Vanilla Ice and take the royal road from Queen and play some Prince. “Little Red Corvette” could take you to Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Under the Bridge” (if you didn’t go that way from “Under Pressure”). Then we could take it back a couple decades again with some Simon and Garfunkel and play “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” TLCs, “Waterfalls” could play next.  

As you can see, the possibilities are limitless and we can use whatever rules we want (because it’s a made-up game). We will most likely set some ground rules to start off with. The point of the game is to have fun, stay engaged and listen to great music. We will take turns with the next song on cue and only pass if we can’t think of a connecting song (doubtful).

Although AC/DC sings there’s a “Highway to Hell,” we will skip that trip and just play the song, then head for some “Route 66” time… maybe from the Cars movie soundtrack… which may lead to The Cars, “Just What I Needed.”  Because a vacation is just that.