The Dream Police

Okay, some background: I'm trying to write something about a guy trying to remember his earliest memory. So, in order to capture the realism, which is what writers do, I'm myself trying to discern my earliest memories...

I know one, probably the earliest. When I was about 4 (which would make this the summer of 19831982, I believe), I think my mother may have even been pregnant with my brother at the time, we took a trip from our home in Pennsylvania to California. We stayed at this complex in Burbank right across from an office building that had the General Lee from "Dukes of Hazard" mounted on the roof. You could, like, see this car on the top of this building from the street. And obviously, it made an impression on me, because I remember how this thing looked all these years later.

I think tonight I may have just isolated my next-earliest memory. I recall distinctly riding to school in a neighbor's car, leaning my head against the window, while The Police's "King of Pain" was playing on the radio. Because the song a single from the 1983 Synchronicity album, which would correlate neatly with the era in which I would have carpooled with this neighbor to school, I'm thinking that puts me at roughly 4-5 years old.

It's just weird how certain little things like smells or sounds can trigger these kinds of peculiar, random memories. I'm pretty sure there was nothing significant about that ride to school when this song came on. I mean, it's kind of a creepy song, maybe it spooked me a bit.



(I also recall a time, probably when I was more like 6 or 7, when I was lying in bed with the radio on - because I liked the radio on while I fell asleep when I was a kid - and I got really creeped out because fucking "Thriller" came on, and it had that part with Vincent Price cackling. Man, 6-year-old me was such a wuss...)

While we're on the subject of "King of Pain," every lyrics site on the Internet says that Sting is singing:

There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

But it sounds nothing like that in the song. It's like, "There's a skeleton...choking on a crux bray!" Or something.