Did an important song hit number 1 on this day in the 80s? Could a Latin Pop star tell a better story than a first lady? Was a song able to make an addicted teen pause? Martika and the song Toy Soldiers would be a hard yes.
If I’m being honest, 1989 was a blur. It began with losing my first love, Cassie, at the tender age of 18. Cassie’s mental health issues combined with a controlling Aunt led to her being institutionalized. The blame was on me as opposed to her childhood trauma finding her mom’s body after a suicide. In the wake of the dramatic loss my own past trauma and untreated depression left me critically wounded emotionally. I got lost in a few different substances, but my go to was ecstasy.
While I was getting lost in blue nitro’s euphoria a rising star wrote a song about a friend of hers lost in addiction.
Martika
Martika is a Gen Xer barely a year older than me. In the 80s she found early teen fame in a show called Kid’s Incorporated. The show was a formula show on Disney also featuring Fergie, Mario Lopez, Shanice, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Eric Balfour. It was about some teens with a band that was popular with other teens. It sometimes covered some important issues with surprising nuance. Crushes and healthy relationships, peer pressure and even child abuse.
In 1988 Martika would record an album that would have a # 1 song on July 22nd of 1989. The song, written by her, was about a friend of hers struggle with cocaine addiction. It was called Toy Soldiers and it was brilliant. The chorus, meant to sound like children, featured her former Kids Inc co stars Fergie, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Rahsaan Patterson, Devyn Puett, and Renee Sands. They knew what the song was about and what it meant to her.
She almost pulled it from the album concerned the topic may be too heavy and personal. Others told her it was too important and poignant not to be in the album. So it stayed.
Toy Soldiers
The analogy of toy soldiers is the idea that addicts, like toy soldiers, do not have control or agency. They are in a war they are not in control of. Parts of the song feels like a dialogue between cocaine and the addict.
“It wasn’t my intention to mislead you
It never should have been this way
What can I say?
It’s true, I did extend the invitation
I never knew how long you’d stay”
This is cocaine talking to the addict. Often addiction starts innocently. You want to feel good or try something new or have a little bit of fun. It invites you and then, like a codependent relationship, you stick around. You stay. Until you cannot get out.
“Won’t you come out and play with me?”
It is the temptation and the continued invitation to come back and keep coming back. And we do.
“It’s getting hard to wake up in the morning
My head is spinning constantly
How can it be?
How could I be so blind to this addiction?
If I don’t stop, the next one’s gonna be me”
This is the addict’s perspective. The next toy soldier to fall. The next toy soldier that can’t win might be me. You have this dark thought from time to time in addiction, but you tamp it down and soldier on.
“Only emptiness remains
It replaces all
All the pain”
And in this last part of the song I will talk about, this is the hard truth. Drugs work. Alcohol works. Self medication works. For a time when all you have is emptiness and pain, it takes it all away. Booze, coke, heroin, liquid x, opiates, and others work. For a time you feel good or you feel less or you feel something you prefer compared to the feeling or emptiness you are trying to avoid.
It is reported, according to an episode of VH1’s Pop Up Video, that her friend did overcome the addiction.
When the Song Hit Me
I was at a rave with my friend, Heather, near Madison Wisconsin. It was the week of my 19th birthday shortly before Toy Soldiers hit number 1. In the Summer of 89 there were two things taking over pop culture. The new Batman movie and Toy Soldiers.
At the rave I wanted the X to hit me faster so I got some molly and snorted it in the washroom. It hit different. It was stronger, more immediate, and there were some unpleasant sensations but the euphoria was stronger. I went back to Heather as Toy Soldiers came on.
She said to me, “Isn’t it weird? We’re all getting high to a song about addiction.”
“This is about addiction?” I asked.
“Yeah.” She smiled and handed me a vial not knowing what I just did. I put in into my pocket. Then a wave of something came over me. I was short of breath and it felt like my heart was racing. I ran outside the warehouse, put my head between my knees, and gasped in the summer air.
Heather followed me outside and asked if I was okay. Instead of answering her I vomited on the pavement, but I also never felt better. She asked me for the keys to my Monte Carlo and took me to her house. On the way there she asked me how much I had. I didn’t know. Then she asked me how often I’ve been taking X and what else I have been taking. I was feeling really good and there was no filter so I gleefully told her.
When we got to her house she took off my shoes and laid me down on the couch with my head on her lap. She touched my hair and commented how sweaty I was.
Her dad walked in wearing a plaid bathrobe and slippers and asked if everything was okay.
Heather looked at her dad and said, “Keith Richards had a little too much fun.”
Her dad touched my forehead and commented how clammy I was. Then he looked into my eyes for a few moments. He disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a cool damp dish towel he placed on my forehead and a glass of ice water with a straw.
“Let me know if you need anything, sweetie,” he said to Heather as he went back to bed.
Heather turned on the television. Every time I spoke she gently hushed me. Eventually I fell asleep.
The Morning
In the morning I woke up to hearing Heather and her dad having a conversation about me. She was worried about me. He tried to suggest it was a phase. She asked him what he would do if it were her and not me. He told her he would deal with the problem and not the drugs. She asked what he meant.
“He’s avoiding pain. He needs to deal with the girlfriend he lost. That wasn’t your typical kids breaking up. Even an adult would have a hard time with that. And didn’t you tell me once that he was abused like you were by your mom and step dad?”
I did not hear her reply. Maybe she nodded. He continued.
“That’s a lot to deal with. It’s a lot to avoid.”
At this point I made a production of “waking up” so they would know I was awake. I went to the bathroom. When I came back her dad was all smiles and made me some scrambled eggs and juice and asked how I was. I told him I was feeling a little embarrassed and apologized. He assured me it was fine.
A little bit after I ate he commented how much better I looked after a hearty breakfast as he brewed some coffee. What he and Heather didn’t know was I had taken half the vial that was still in my pocket when I went to the bathroom. Hair of the dog was probably more effective than the eggs were.
Her dad went to work. I filled a mug with coffee and went to the back deck for a cigarette and Heather joined me.
“You know you can talk to me about it, right?” She said.
“Talk about what?” I asked.
“Cassie,” She said.
I exhaled smoke and said, “I don’t know what to say. Look. I’ll slow it down. Okay?”
“Promise?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I lied. She turned on a boom box that was on the deck. A few songs in “Toy Soldiers” came on. I paid closer attention to the lyrics. For the first time I understood the song. In that moment I was a little scared. It was the beginning.
Over the decades one substance or habit would replace another. Religion also fed into my codependency and avoidance. I always was functioning (kinda, but not really) until I wasn’t in my late 40’s. After my failed suicide attempt at 49 and almost having lost everything and everyone, I had to take sobriety seriously. And the core of that goes back to what Heather’s dad said in a kitchen 35 years ago. I had to face some shit.
A song at a rave and eavesdropping came at the beginning of a long dark road of various addictions. But it was also the beginning of the solution.
I often come back to that song and another song she did called “Love Thy Will Be Done” in 1991. Perhaps we’ll talk about that song one day.
In the 80’s first lady Nancy Reagan felt the answer to addiction was to just say no. ABC after school specials made drugs and the people who offered them look like silly villains tying Polly Purebread to the train tracks. TV PSA’s compared our brains on drugs to a fried egg. None of these approaches had nuance about life. Heather’s dad and Martika had a deeper understanding on the human condition. Frankly, so do most recovering addicts.
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