Wednesday, June 25, 2025: Muni Long - Made For Me

It's 1993.  It's just after 1am in the morning.  I make a left from Southbound Azusa Ave, and now I'm driving Eastbound on Colima Ave.  Walnut, California.

I look over to my left at the Puente Hills Mall parking lot, because that's what I always do, and even though nobody else is in the car, I still say out loud, "That's where they filmed Back To The Future."

The streetlights run over my windshield left right left right, the signs on the stores turn from Chinese to Korean to Japanese, with some Spanish signs popping up for good measure.  Nobody else on the road, except for a smattering of other lonely, lost spirits, some police, and if I'm lucky, I'll catch the quick glimpse of a street racer on their way to ply their trade.  We're all looking for our Springsteen moment, except this is suburban Southern California, not the swamps of New Jersey.

Suburbia, wherever it is, hits different at night.  Especially deep into the night, that grey area between top dead center of the middle of the night, and that slow decent into dawn.  Into the light.  The buildings both lose their shape, and somehow become more intimidating, more ominous.  You're mind can understand why they are there in the daytime; open for trade, serving a purpose.  They make less sense at night.  Parking lots become oceans of darkness dimpled with simple lightpoles pouring out concentric circles of hideous yellow light.  Cross traffic becomes just as dangerous as a serial killer.  

And this song comes on the radio.

Why?  Because it fits.  It sounds as much 1993 as it does 2024, when it was released. 

Muni Long started her career under her birth name Priscilla Renea Hamilton, and found success penning hits for Rihanna, Ariana Grande, Kelly Clarkson, Mariah Carey, and more.

She reinvented herself in 2019 as Muni Long—a move driven by a desire for creative autonomy.

I don't know much about R&B, whether or not it needs a savior or not, but if it does, then it's Muni Long to the rescue.   

Here's to those long night drives.  May we never stop taking that journey.