The Music of Your (My) Life?

I made my weekly visit to Guercio's on Grant Street on Buffalo's West Side today; for those of you who haven't been there or aren't from Buffalo, it is a great Italian market and deli with some very high-quality ethnic foods and deli choices, as well as some very good and very inexpensive coffee beans.

It is also home of a very fun and interesting staff that enjoys certain music, from Italian crooners and American versions (including Frank Sinatra, Jerry Vale, Dean Martin and Al Martino), and classic hits, which are what the stations are mostly tuned to when I go there. I rather enjoy the days the crooner stations are on (who doesn't enjoy some early to mid-period Sinatra), and there is a photo of Elvis Presley in Las Vegas "choking" a family member from the early 1970s near one of the cash registers.

Today, when I got there, I went to the deli first, as usual, and took my number; seeing it was crowded and I was 10 numbers away from getting served, I went to get my coffee beans. When I returned, the area I was standing in was directly in the middle of the area where you could hear the station the store was playing and the music or station the women working in the deli were playing.

So, I heard David Bowie singing "Golden Years" on the store station, while Hall and Oates were singing "Kiss on My List" on the deli station, finishing a two-song set that classic hits station was featuring this weekend.

The next set? Making an, um, riveting segue, the station played two songs by Andy Gibb, "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" and "Shadow Dancing." Boy, howdy, just what I wanted to hear, but apparently, I was in the minority. A couple of deli workers and customers sang along to the late Mr. Gibb, and one customer, a woman about age 40-45, began slowly swaying and dancing to "I Just Want to Be Your Everything," and picked up the pace to "Shadow Dancing."

I smiled and said nothing about it; at least they were enjoying the music.