bornAfrican - The Convergence of Africana

A Kiss Is Just A Kiss

Posted April 14, 2007 · Charles O

I remember that night—I must have been about 8 or 10 years old—as though it were yesterday. Actually, although I remember it as though it were yesterday, my recollection is only of slices of that night, laying on the couch half-awake (or half-asleep, depending on how you look at it), watching foreign pop music on TV. But of the memory of that ephemeral, sleepy night, the sounds that have continued to reverberate, without abatement, are portions of the lyrics to three of the most peculiar songs I’d heard till then (and, perhaps, since).

Needless to say, those song snippets (for my persistent memory captured no more than a few lines of the songs) have been played and re-played in my head many times, to the point of really bothering me—since now that I am older, I know neither what artist performed them nor the rest of their lyrics nor even anything else, really, about them.

So today, one of the songs, the first one, begins to play in my head, again. Enter Google, a veritable savior in these kinds of situations. In the search bar add-on to my Internet Explorer installation, I type:

lyric: “a kiss is just a kiss” “baby baby” “i’m making [ … ]”

Those are the words I remember from that first song, and here’s what I get:

Bummer! I reduce the keywords, by eliminating the last quotation; and get results this time:

I follow the “Amy Grant – Wikipedia …” link to a dead end. Amy Grant’s “a kiss is just a kiss” is obviously not what I am looking for. I invoke the “Back” function of my browser, and follow the link to the first item listed in Google’s search return. Here’s where I’m sent:

You’ve got to be kidding me, right? This site wants me to login or signup to listen to the song… My instant vertict: Forget these guys! Nonetheless, thanks for hinting the name of the artist (Kilo Ali). Off I go to Rhapsody, and, this time, viola!

So thanks to Google and Rhapsody, I have resolved one of three frivolities that have nagged at me since that night, well over 10 years ago…

I have lesser hopes of resolving the other two codundra (I prefer conundra to conundrums, thank you), as one of them is positively European Pop (and God know they weren’t saying anything more than the generic, literally: “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, yo, yo, yo, yo, yoyo…” ) and the other was (I’ve only now consciously decided) in Spanish.

Though, I’m inspired to continue to try, the main lessons I come away with are:

1. I am way more empowered to find answers and to resolve issues than, say, my Grandfather was at my age. Think about the fact that I was able to re-discover a rather obscure song in a few clicks…. I could in a few more clicks download it from iTunes ($0.99), watch its video on YouTube, and post a blog entry about on bornAfrican.com.
2. If you impose unnecessary restrictions on visitors to your site, they will go elsewhere.

This entry, then, is so much about me quickly and effectively obtaining an answer to one of three nagging questions, as it is about exploring and exploiting our capabilities and enablements, today. Have you answered an unanwered question today? Go on, do it.

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