Ballads of Suburbia Cyber Launch Party Day 2: The Ballad of Cecil Castellucci

Welcome to Day 2 of the Ballads of Suburbia Cyber Launch Party! For all of the details on the party including guests, the daily contests and the grand prize drawing be sure to read the information at the beginning of Day 1's blog.

Today's guest blogger is author Cecil Castellucci!

Cecil Castellucci is the author of the YA novels Boy Proof, The Queen of Cool and Beige and the graphic novels The PLAIN Janes and Janes in Love. Her latest book is an anthology of stories she co-edited about nerds called Geektastic. Visit her at http://www.misscecil.com.

Here's Cecil's ballad:

“I remember it, in Dublin in a rainstorm. Sitting in the long grass in summer, keeping warm on a memory.” Sinead O'Conner / Troy

You know what I did? I cut off all my long pink hair. That’s what listening to Sinead O’Conner’s The Lion and The Cobra made me do. I was 18 years old, my first year of College, living in a dorm. (Hayden Hall at NYU.) It was late at night. Maybe 3 am. I couldn’t sleep and so I went downstairs to watch the television. I didn’t have a TV in my room. Downstairs, they had MTV. I sat there watching music videos and the video for TROY by Sinead O’Conner came on.

And I thought to myself, this song is me. It speaks to me. It is how I roar on the inside.

I bought the album. And then I spent many days in my dorm room, with my 12” record playing over and over again on my roommates stereo system, singing the entire album at the top of my lungs. I would come home from film class with a six-pack of Rolling Rock. Wearing a vintage cocktail dress and red lipstick. Sporting cat-eye sunglasses. Lit by candles in the middle of the room. Drinking and singing. Singing and drinking.

I would hand out beer, or chocolate like trick or treat candy to whomever stopped by my room, to either sit with me in my angst. Or, more likely, see what kind of cat was being strangled.

My roommate, Hope, complained that I played the album so often that even she knew the lyrics by heart. And she hated Sinead O’Conner. She was a Soft Cell girl.

Back then, in my angsty ways, I believed that I understood what Sinead was singing about. I thought I understood what she meant when she called her lover a liar. I sang it so loud. I sang it with meaning.

I wish I didn’t understand the songs and the pain better. I wish that with time, her heartache and pain were more foreign to me. Now of course, I know more about liars. I know more about deception and about being abused.

But that album, no matter that it is 20+ years later, still rings true. It’s honesty just gets better, like a fine wine aged to perfection.

Today's Contest:

Cecil has been kind enough to offer up a copy of Beige, which I'm sure you have heard me gush about many times. It's one of my all-time favorite books. To enter just leave a comment about Cecil's gorgeous ballad. You'll earn additional entries by blogging/tweeting/etc about this blog or the cyber launch party. Just note your additional entries in your comment. Winner will be chosen at random on Tuesday, July 21.

Tomorrow's Guest:

Author and musician Tara Kelly (her YA novel Harmonic Feedback is forthcoming in 2010) will be blogging tomorrow. So be sure to come back and visit!