I JUST MET A GIRL…

            A few years back an acquaintance told me that a friend of hers wished to be named Maria, because of the Beck song called “O Maria.” I had never heard this particular Maria song.  After a listening it’s not a bad song, but not the best Maria tune.  Having had this name for 32 years now, I’ve come to discover there are lots of songs about a girl named Maria.  Actually, few years back my wife made me a mix cd filled completely with songs about Maria, from Michael Jackson, to Patti Smith, to Willie Nelson, to Rage Against the Machine, and even one by Men at Work.  My favorite song is “My Maria,” by B. W. Stevenson; I would catch this country style song on the radio now and then.  However, it took me many years to find out who was the artist and to finally get a copy of the tune.  I think having to hunt for the song, made it a challenge, and I enjoyed the lyrics, “I’m a lonely dreamer on a highway in the skies.” 

 Adam Duritz the lead singer of Counting Crows has mentioned a woman named Maria in four of the group’s songs and two times in his previous band the Himalayans.  Why are there so many songs about Maria?  Well, Duritz explains that for him: “it's through the eyes of a girl, but it's someone very much like me struggling at the edge, not sure if she's going to fall off on one side or the other. It's a theme that's stuck through songs. So she keeps popping up.”  I am not sure why there are so many songs about my name, but over the years I have come to place specific songs with particular moments in my life. 

MARIA- From West Side Story

I've just met a girl named Maria,
And suddenly that name
Will never be the same
To me.
Maria!

            This is the song that most likely people will break into song with when I tell them my name.  Especially middle age men seem to enjoy this particular song.  There is one particular man I think of when I hear this tune and that was my computer teacher in middle school.  I have distinct memories of him singing “I just met a girl name Maria” in front of the class a few times.  I was pretty darn shy at this stage in my life and would mostly just sit there and smile, as I was being serenade to in front of the class.  At the time I was embarrassed to have any attention being drawn to me, but looking back now it makes me glad that he did break into song.  I usually felt unnoticed in school and mostly kept to myself.  In that class all I remember was learning the home-row and that we got to play Oregon Trail for the last ten minutes.  I never made it to the sweet land of Oregon, damn you dysentery and snakebites, and I lost a lot of good people to you. Flash forward to present day, Keishla, my 24 a year old co-worker breaks into the Santana’s tune “Maria, Maria, she reminds me of a west side story.” It has been over fifteen years between these two songs played a role in my life and I have still managed not to see “West Side Story.”  I will have to correct this soon. 

TAKE A LETTER MARIA – By R B Greaves:

So take a letter Maria..address it to my wife
Say I won't be coming home..gotta start a new life
Oh Take a letter Maria..address it to my wife
Send a copy to my lawyer..gotta start a new life
You've been many things but most of all a good secretary to me
And it's time like this I feel, you've always been close to me

From my early grade school days to the start middle school my favorite radio station was the Oldies 95.7.  I loved Motown and all music from 50s and 60s era.  While I was still listening to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, my father was getting into Nirvana and Pearl Jam before I was.  Every so often while listening to the Oldies this catchy little number would come on.  I enjoyed the music, but even then the lurking feminist in me had a problem with the lyrics that describes a man leaving his wife at one moment and then hitting on his secretary the very next second.  Today, I hear the song and part of me thinks sexual harassment in the work force, but not too surprising that it came from the era of Mad Men.

MARIA – By Blondie

She walks like she don't care
Walkin' on imported air
Ooh, it makes you wanna die

Maria, you've gotta see her
Go insane and out of your mind
Regina, Ave Maria
A million and one candle lights

            Doing some research on these songs I learned that “Maria” was the first hit single for the band Blondie, since 1982, the year I was born.  My father had a few albums of the bands early stuff and I had become a fan myself over the years.  This particular song came out in 1999, when I was in my senior year of high school.  It was refreshing to hear a more hip Maria song and sung by a rocking front lady.  I’ll admit at the time I did not relate to the Maria described in the song who was driving people wild.  When I started my sophomore year of high school, my doctor informed I that my scoliosis was getting worse and they thought it best to put me into a back brace.  I was already a shy kid and now I have to wear baggy clothes to hide the brace.  These years of being introvert gave me a good understanding of who I was and a glimpse of what I wanted in life. Close to the end of my senior year I able to remove the back brace off and bought a very tight black tank top from Starship and wore it to school.  For that moment I was “walking on imported air” down Wauwatosa East.  Blondie and that black tank top gave me faith that things would be better in college and that it was up to me to be that change.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE MARIA- From The Sound of Music

Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a wave upon the sand

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

            I had seen The Sound of Music maybe once as a child, but did not watch it again until I met Ashley, my then girlfriend and my now wife.  She had been a huge fan of the musical growing up and so when she would occasionally into song about “how do you solve a problem like Maria”?  When we got married a few years back we had joked that I should have walked down the aisle with the wedding processional version of the song.  Watching the movie now I can see why Ashley and many others love this film, it has some of the best musical songs ever written.  I personally like the film adaptation of Maria von Trapp, this free spirited woman who the nuns could just not seem to get under control.  In this song the nuns are debating with each other what type of woman is this Maria?  Well, us Maria’s of the world we are complicated and no one has yet figured out how to “hold a moonbeam in your hand.”