Talking to Girls about Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut

Back-of-the-book blurb:  Growing up in the eighties, you were surrounded by mysteries. These were the years of MTV and John Hughes movies, the era of big dreams and bigger shoulder pads. Like any teenage geek, Rob Sheffield spent the decade searching for true love and maybe a cooler haircut. This memoir is his tale of stumbling into adulthood with a killer soundtrack; it is a journey through pop culture of an American adolescence that will remind you of your first crush, first car, and first kiss. But it’s not just a book about music. This is a book about moments in time, and the way we obsess over them through the years.

She Is Too Fond of Books’ review:  In the introduction to his memoir about growing up in the 80s, Rob Sheffield muses:

It’s complicated, the way we use pop culture artifacts in our day-to-day emotional relationships … What else is pop culture for? … bringing people together is what music has always done best. … I could claim that Duran Duran taught me everything I know about women, but that’s not exactly accurate:  I learned it from listening to girls talk about Duran Duran.

Sheffield’s story is, of course, about more than Duran Duran.  It’s filled to overflowing with 80s references, from movies (Pretty in Pink, Dirty Dancing and Sixteen Candles) and fashions (um, I’m using the term loosely to apply it to Dynasty-era shoulder pads and the ubiquitous Members Only jacket) to current flashback favorites (“Tainted Love” and “Billie Jean”) and songs you might hear at a wedding reception this very weekend (“Livin’ on a Prayer” and “Don’t Stop Believin’”). 

Sheffield writes with a loose and conversational style; I image an author event would be filled with laughter and head-nodding as he read from his book.  He writes a lot of humor in Talking to Girls; yes, much of which will be most appreciated by those who were around in the 80s and enjoyed, or at least were aware of, the movies and music he uses to frame his memoir.

An example of the way pop culture anchors the memoir (and one of many passages I read aloud to J as I enjoyed this book):  Sheffield spent the summer of ’82 (between Sophomore and Junior years in high school, if my calculations are correct) as an exchange student in Madrid, making fast friends with many local girls, who considered him “just a friend” and a safe escort to parties and outings:

Sometimes they trusted me to pick the evening’s entertainment. … But I squandered my credibility dragging them to Airplane! retitled Aterrizza come puedas, or “Land However You Can.”  I assured them that in America, this was universally recognized as the funniest movie ever made.  How I laughed, the lone hyena in the theater, at all the badly dubbed Spanish versions of the jokes I knew by heart.  The girls failed to see the humor of “Yo hablo jive” or “No me llamas Shirley.”

I tried explaining why it was funny.  See, in ingles, the word “seguramente” is “surely,” which sounds like el nombre de una persona.  Shirley!  Divertido, no?

I was never allowed to pick the movie again.  To punish me, they took me to see Midnight Express, about an American boy who gets thrown into a foreign jail because he tries to smuggle drugs.  The movie was torture to watch, although, it did introduce me to the concept of bras that unhook in the front.

Rob Sheffield tells his story, setting the time and place by the pop culture he soaked up as a teen.  It’s his story – the events are the personal anecdotes of a self-confessed quiet geeky guy, the oldest of four children, and the only son in an Irish Catholic family living outside Boston.  But, it could be anyone’s story.  Single, outgoing, mother of two in Des Moines? It’s her story.  Married, unemployed accountant in Tampa?  It’s his story.  We can all connect to the memories that surface when a certain song plays on the radio, or when we land on a favorite old TV show when channel-surfing; Sheffield shares what sparks those memories for him.

Recommended for fans of the 80s; if you survived them the first time around, you’ll especially enjoy this trip down memory lane.

About the author:  Rob Sheffield is a music journalist and columnist for Rolling Stone.  His previously published memoir, Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time, has been added to my wish list.