Music has always been a curious friend. And as with my other friends, there have been long lapses in my association with it. I first remember turning to music at the age of 12 or so, as I suppose many do. I got my thirteen albums for a penny from Columbia records and found temporary refuge in my bedroom from the madness around me. I had eclectic tastes before I knew what eclectic meant or that "musical taste" would be something that would nearly spoil the medium for me years later. I was free then to like what I liked and to indulge in pure musical pleasure before the hipsters introduced the guilt.
Looking back now, I find it very curious that I related to and embraced heartbreak songs long before I ever learned to love (subject to debate). How can you feel pain you never earned? I know it wasn't a portent or even the seeds of a self-fulfilling prophecy, but those lonely melodies rattled around inside me comfortably as if I had shot straight to the fifth stage of grief without passing go. It wasn't sick, but it couldn't have been healthy.
There were other connections though, some intellectual and some spiritual. The Vietnam War was ending and there were songs that inspired or accelerated a region of my conscience that fuels my limited ethics to this day. I learned to consider sacrifice, injustice, and cruelty two and half minutes at a time. Music also helped me try to connect to the world around me, not just with like minded fans, but to ideas and the artifacts of generational heritage that had skipped a beat in my family. Jesus Christ Superstar energized me to look past the pedantic filters of faith and religion that had turned me off so completely from the Catholic church. For the first time I came to embrace my doubt and shame as part of my humanity and a portal to my God.
Later in my teenage years, adrenaline and decibels displaced lyrics and intellectual passion and I didn't mind. Feeling music without a particular emotional attachment is oddly cathartic to me even now. It is hard to go back and relive my first moments with a song or artist, not remembering it in a context free of the memories that followed and envelop it now. It is so rare for me to find new music that I like, perhaps because I prefer the aggregated pain and nostalgia that have barnacled those old tunes. There are the occasional exceptions though, and I am thankful for them.
Nearly a dozen years ago, I discovered a new artist (new to me anyway) while watching a terrible but fun horror flick. The movie was a period piece, if you are allowed yet to call a 1970's flick a period piece, and the soundtrack was from the same era. I heard a beautiful and haunting song that could have been sung by a man or woman, I couldn't tell. I waited patiently for the movie to end and watched the credits carefully. The song was by Terry Reid, and I hadn't yet realized that it was an old song. After a quick google search, I learned about his career and the album that contained the song that had enthralled me. I was in London at the time and Terry was a British artist - after a quick trip down to Virgin Records the next day, I came home with the CD. I loved every track. If you don't know his story, by the way, it is an interesting one. Google it :)
The tune is Seed of Memory and I have put a link to it below. The song is connected to my London experience and my friends there, but it has become so much more for me. When I listen to it, it echoes inside me displacing an emptiness, ricocheting between the pain and pleasures of lost love and middle aged foolishness. The reanimation is a welcome ritual that leaves me smiling and grateful for the ability to feel again. Music should be like that - haunting, forgiving, and friendly........
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgshmDZGZaA
Looking back now, I find it very curious that I related to and embraced heartbreak songs long before I ever learned to love (subject to debate). How can you feel pain you never earned? I know it wasn't a portent or even the seeds of a self-fulfilling prophecy, but those lonely melodies rattled around inside me comfortably as if I had shot straight to the fifth stage of grief without passing go. It wasn't sick, but it couldn't have been healthy.
There were other connections though, some intellectual and some spiritual. The Vietnam War was ending and there were songs that inspired or accelerated a region of my conscience that fuels my limited ethics to this day. I learned to consider sacrifice, injustice, and cruelty two and half minutes at a time. Music also helped me try to connect to the world around me, not just with like minded fans, but to ideas and the artifacts of generational heritage that had skipped a beat in my family. Jesus Christ Superstar energized me to look past the pedantic filters of faith and religion that had turned me off so completely from the Catholic church. For the first time I came to embrace my doubt and shame as part of my humanity and a portal to my God.
Later in my teenage years, adrenaline and decibels displaced lyrics and intellectual passion and I didn't mind. Feeling music without a particular emotional attachment is oddly cathartic to me even now. It is hard to go back and relive my first moments with a song or artist, not remembering it in a context free of the memories that followed and envelop it now. It is so rare for me to find new music that I like, perhaps because I prefer the aggregated pain and nostalgia that have barnacled those old tunes. There are the occasional exceptions though, and I am thankful for them.
Nearly a dozen years ago, I discovered a new artist (new to me anyway) while watching a terrible but fun horror flick. The movie was a period piece, if you are allowed yet to call a 1970's flick a period piece, and the soundtrack was from the same era. I heard a beautiful and haunting song that could have been sung by a man or woman, I couldn't tell. I waited patiently for the movie to end and watched the credits carefully. The song was by Terry Reid, and I hadn't yet realized that it was an old song. After a quick google search, I learned about his career and the album that contained the song that had enthralled me. I was in London at the time and Terry was a British artist - after a quick trip down to Virgin Records the next day, I came home with the CD. I loved every track. If you don't know his story, by the way, it is an interesting one. Google it :)
The tune is Seed of Memory and I have put a link to it below. The song is connected to my London experience and my friends there, but it has become so much more for me. When I listen to it, it echoes inside me displacing an emptiness, ricocheting between the pain and pleasures of lost love and middle aged foolishness. The reanimation is a welcome ritual that leaves me smiling and grateful for the ability to feel again. Music should be like that - haunting, forgiving, and friendly........
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgshmDZGZaA
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