In 1983 I was fourteen, growing up in a small town, and just beginning to search out different kinds of music. Whenever MTV played something that seemed unusual or interesting I sought it out. The video for “The One Thing” by INXS really struck me – it may have been the visual impact of the pomegranate that looked like a vagina, as puberty was hitting its stride. I immediately bought the Shabooh Shoobah cassette, and I lived and breathed it all the way through the summer. I taught myself how to play the songs on my Casio MT-45 keyboard (which, incidentally, I still have).

My parents tolerated my obsession with the tape, even letting me listen to it in the car stereo on a long family road trip. By the end of that summer, the cassette had moved out of my heavy rotation, making way for new discoveries. Of course some of these discoveries weren’t musical: for example, I discovered that my father had a secret subscription to Playboy and kept a stash of the magazines. When he wised up to my discovery he moved them to another secret location, which just meant I had to search a little harder.

I wasn’t prepared for what I finally found in my father’s gun cabinet. Nestled in with a pile of magazines was a small stack of video tapes, one of which had “The One Thing” written on the title. Remembering my favorite song from the summer, I took the tape and popped it in the VCR. As the tape began, I could hear the beginning notes of the song, followed by a view of my parents’ room. Then, from stage left, my mother danced into the screen wearing something from Frederick’s of Hollywood. Before I could grasp what was going on, she began undressing… to my INXS song.

I lunged to turn off the television, wishing I could stab needles in my eyes. I immediately returned the video to the its hiding place in the gun cabinet, and then I hid my Shabooh Shoobah cassette from myself so I wouldn’t forget and try to listen to it again. Is there therapy for something like this? I can’t even look at a shotgun without shuddering, let alone listen to INXS’ “The One Thing” any more.