Roxette, Part Two: “Dressed for Success”

“Get dressed for success, shaking me up to the big time…”

That song was coming from somewhere but I couldn’t find the source. I was lying in my bed in 149 Kelsey Hall. It was a special room that had a bed, bathroom and closet, all shoe-horned into a res room the same size as all the rest.

Where was it coming from?

Then I found the source. It was coming from a vent by a pillar where the ceiling met the wall.

I got closer, and discovered what was actually happening.

My room was right below the bathroom in the girls’ wing on Second Kelsey. It was a Thursday night, and the girls had a ghetto blaster in the bathroom playing music. It was background noise while they got ready to go out to the bar in res, called The Ship.

It happened every week, and often, it all started with “Dressed for Success” by Roxette.

Settling in
By this point, maybe late October or November of 1989, I had settled in to my new home on Main Kelsey as the hall vice-president of Kelsey Hall.

It was a great floor, with a great bunch of people.

Part of my job as vice-president, which I really did not think of as a job, was representing the entire tower, not just any one floor.

I did my best to get to know everyone in the building. In that effort, I was aided by the ten floor coordinators I had, one for each floor in Kelsey Hall.

In the summer, I had helped appoint a new floor coordinator for Second Kelsey, named Kelly Kleinmeyer. He was a friend of Bruce Freadrich’s, who I had met the year before. Back then, I was floor coordinator for Fifth Kelsey and he was floor coordinator for Fourth Kelsey. When we needed a coordinator for Main Kelsey for the 1989-1990 school year, we looked to Bruce. A month or so later, when the Second Kelsey spot had not been filled, Bruce suggested Kelly.

So, when students returned to school in September of 1989, by virtue of Bruce and Kelly hanging out, and the fact we were all neighbours, Main Kelsey and Second Kelsey began to hang out together.

It was a cross-pollination that went on for years, because there were a lot of really good people on both floors.

Over time, I met virtually all the girls on the floor too.

Yet, I never had the heart to ask who played their ghetto blaster in the bathroom.

How do you even phrase that question?

The song
“Dressed for Success” went all the way to number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and number 10 in Canada. Intrestingly, the first place I ever heard it was not the radio or MuchMusic, but coming out of the vent in my room in res.

Parting thoughts
Music can evoke such strong and vivid memories. So it’s funny, but no surprise, that “Dressed for Success” conjures up memories of that room in res, Ship nights which were amazing in that 1989-1990 school year, and especially those girls from Second Kelsey.

Come to think of it, they were getting dressed for success.