I had never really thought about this before, but a friend of mine at work introduced a notion to me this week that continues to intrigue me. While a child during the early '80s, she says she developed an extreme, inexplicable fear upon hearing the synthesized strains of Matthew Wilder's perky 1983 Top 10 hit, "Break My Stride." Upon initial consideration, this seems a bit bizarre, but the more I thought about it, this tune is rather off-kilter both musically and lyrically. Consider the song's opening line, which resembles an actual nightmare in its unsettling, ethereal imagery that feels like it might veer off into uncomfortable territory at any moment: "Last night I had the strangest dream, I sailed away to China, in a little rowboat to find ya, and you said you had to get your laundry clean." Come to think of it, I can visualize the thick mist of such a scene, where perhaps something unspeakable lurks, ready to coil around an unsuspecting neck.

When I tried to think of my own equivalent to this type of strong song association, my mind corralled it in a matter of seconds. When I was a slightly older kid at about the same time, I made it a general practice at bedtime to listen to my clock radio at low volume until my parents retired for the evening. Sleepless on one of these occasions, I remember hearing Elton John's "Empty Garden" and being overtaken by a sense of unease akin to hyperventilation. I've never forgotten that feeling of helplessness, and although in this case the association makes some sense given the song's haunting subject matter (the senseless 1980 murder of John Lennon and the cruelty of its aftermath), I certainly didn't realize it at the time. Ah, yet another way we all experience the power of music: it can inspire pure, mysterious joy but then turn around and make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up in creeping dread. If you have one buried in your past, please share your own versions of the '80s music creep-out.

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