track 10: lost in your eyes

A gigantic part of my teenage years revolved around the music of one Deborah "Debbie" Gibson. I loved Debbie from the minute I first heard her song "Only in my dreams." I totally had a crush on Debbie. I wore out my Out of the Blue cassette, not to mention the VHS of her music videos AND the Out of the Blue Tour Live video. She was so awesome AND she played piano AND wrote her own songs! She loved Billy Joel, I loved Billy Joel. It was major fandom.



The first single from her second album was "Lost in your eyes." I remember calling the radio station over and over again, asking them to play it. I believe that I even asked them to dedicate it to a girl in my French class that I had a crush on. Eventually I asked her to go to a school football game with me. She said maybe she'd see me there. She did not. *shrug*

I remember the day Electric Youth came out. I think it was the beginning of my habit of buying albums on their release dates like the total geek I am. It was even better than Out of the Blue and I would even get to see Debbie in concert that year. Two years later, when I got my first CD player for my 17th birthday, Debbie's Anything Is Possible was one of my other birthday gifts. I remember listening to Body Mind & Soul when I was in college, eating lunch at MDCC and listening to "Losin' myself" on my Discman over and over again. Her Think With Your Heart album was actually really good and very Billy Joelesque.



Even in the spring of 1997 I was still a devoted fan. My family and I had flown up to NYC for the first time, where we met up with my friend Lisa to see Rent (which was still pretty new and featured the original cast). We landed and spent the evening with Lisa and Shawn and a couple of other friends from the Ani DiFranco mailing list I was on. The next day, my mom, Dave and Lisa and I walked around the city. One thing on the itinerary was finding Debbie's new album, Deborah. It was being released independently and so far only through Tower Records in NYC. But not at the first Tower we went to. Nope, we had to go to the Tower in Trump Tower! At this point, it was raining. But we walked and walked in the rain just to get to Trump Tower and pick up my Debbie Gibson CD. I think we still had fun, but it was a bit of a waste to spend so much time of our trip hunting down a CD that I'd eventually be able to get online anyway. I guess I justified it to myself.

While I would eventually go on to live in NYC, Debbie- Deborah- would go on to make a lousy album called MYOB and pose for Playboy. However, her album of showtunes, Colored Lights is pretty good. But the truth is that I've moved on. Her early music lives on in my heart (and, I admit, on my ipod).

My favorite part of "Lost in your eyes" comes around 2 minutes into the song, when Debbie would stop playing and climb on top of the piano. Even today I am embarrassed to say, it gives me a big thrill. After all this time and despite everything I've experienced since, I am at heart a cheesy romantic.