"Where's Tina?"

It was a goofy 1980s novelty item, probably found at a Spencer’s Gifts: a pin that read, in red letters, “NO, I’m not Tina Turner.” It suited my absurdist sense of humor at the time, so I bought it and wore it now and then, confident that other people would find it utterly hilarious to see a geeky white college guy wearing a pin that read, “NO, I’m not Tina Turner”. That might have been a flawed premise, but it was the ‘80s.

Still though, there is a profound truth to a silly pin that reads “NO, I’m not Tina Turner”. That’s because no one else, ever, could have been Tina Turner.

I was fortunate to have seen Tina Turner three times: once when she was touring behind her iconic Private Dancer album and once a few years later. In between those shows, I was at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia on July 13, 1985, when Mick Jagger yelled “Where’s Tina?” and he and Tina subsequently electrified the Live Aid live audience, and the world, with an incendiary medley of the Jacksons’ “State of Shock” and the Rolling Stones’ “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It)”.

Only Anna Mae Bullock could have possibly been Tina Turner. We are all so lucky to have experienced her presence.

~217~