The Night I Chose C.C. Catch over Curfew

YEAR: 1989

TRACK: I Can Lose My Heart Tonight by C. C. Catch (YouTube, Spotify), and everything else

PLACE: Przemysl, Poland

MEMORY: Was my mom the greatest supporter of my love for music growing up, or what? As far back as I can reach in my episodic memory, the radio in the kitchen was always on, we would always enjoy the music of the time, and she would always give me pocket money to get new tapes.

I was maybe 6 when C.C. Catch became my first true idol. Oh, how I loved her melancholic voice and the piercing emotion of the melodies. There was a lot of heartbreak in them, but at 6 or 7, the closest thing to that feeling for me was when I couldn’t eat as much candy as I wanted – a true heartbreak indeed that made me feel like my world was ending.

Equipped with my feeling of the weeping heart, I let her music help me experience the full range of emotions as I jumped to the Eurodisco beats. In ’89, I was at summer camp when I found out that C.C. Catch would be the guest star during our annual Polish international song contest in Sopot. I was away, and it seemed like I would die if I didn’t witness it on our freshly liberated post-communist TV.

The camp had no TV, so I begged my mom to get me home on time to see it. Luckily, the camp was just across the street from our house, on my dad’s military base (I went to that camp 6 summers in a row, from what I remember!). And just for that one night, I was home. I still remember my cousin and me jumping with joy to those emotion-filled songs. Ah, these broken hearts. Except my little one got mended that evening.

FOOTNOTES:

• For Poland, 1989 was the year of the total political makeover, part of the revolutionary wave sweeping across Eastern Europe. Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa and his movement pushed for the Round Table Talks that secured the legalization of trade unions, the creation of a Senate, and semi-free elections. Solidarity crushed the polls and picked their first non-communist Prime Minister (Tadeusz Mazowiecki). The country even got a brand new name and a changed democratic constitution with civil liberties. All that led to the fall of communism, and the Third Polish Republic was born! The Sopot International Song Festival happened in mid-August, right in the middle of all this political transformation!
• The golden age of Eurodisco in the mid-80s brought an irresistible blend of emotionally charged melodies (minor keys much?), synth-heavy production, and dreamy choruses – and C.C. Catch was totally at the center of it all! Her heartbreak anthems like Heaven and Hell and Cause You Are Young had this perfect mix of dance beats and melancholic vibes that grabbed my soul before I even hit 10. Sandra was another one – her ethereal voice on tracks like Heaven Can Wait and Stop for a Minute followed me well into the 90s, while Italo disco Gina T or Savage had me obsessed with those soaring melodies and dramatic lyrics. The whole Eurodisco scene was pretty short-lived, maybe just a few years, but it left a mark on me forever. Looking back, it’s no wonder I fell utterly in love with new age electronic acts like Enigma in the 90s, Eurodance, and house music later – that emotional, dreamy sound was already in my blood!