Tina Turner in the House

The moment I heard Tina Turner died, I thought of my mother. I’ve been thinking about them both all week. In 1984, when Turner’s legendary album, Private Dancer, came out, I was in third grade, and I can remember, as clearly as though it were yesterday, sitting in the soft velour backseat of my mother’s beige Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, singing along to the hits the local pop radio station played: “Better Be Good to Me,”  “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” and that soulful, sensual title number, “Private Dancer.” I loved these songs; to me they were wonderful enigmas that spoke of adult secrets I might someday grasp. As the news of Turner’s death spread throughout social media this past week, I saw numerous people expressing the sadness I felt: her music, it was said, formed the soundtrack of our 1980s youth.