It was the late 60’s, and I remember standing on the seat, with my head out of the sunroof and the wind in my face.
I was with my future brother-in-law Greg, and we were on our way to meet up with my sister at Wagner College on Staten Island. I remember Greg telling me that what I was doing was not safe, and he finally made me sit down, and when I did, he turned up the radio and told me to listen as The Doors “Light My Fire” came on the radio, he told me that I would like the song, and he was right!
There are some songs that have the power to take us back to a moment in time, not necessarily the first time we heard the song, but to a moment so significant that hearing the song again stirs up our memory.
“Light My Fire” congers up that long ago ride in the Karmann Ghia with Greg, when I hear “Mrs. Robinson” I’m taken back to a rainy day while camping at some place that I can only vaguely recall, but I can still remember hearing the song while hanging out in a pavilion on a damp summer day with my brothers and some friends, and watching it rain while they tried to play Ping-Pong…or maybe it was pool?
When I hear any song recorded live at Woodstock, I not only remember hours spent listening to the album, but also the day of the concert when my brothers Bob and Pete were listening to the news and decided to drive to upstate New York in an attempt to attend the concert, and how they were stopped halfway there because the New York Thruway was closed.
“Walk on the Wild Side” by Lou Reed reminds me of the afternoon that Bob first played the song for me, and opened my eyes to music that wasn’t top 40! In the same way, hearing disco music reminds me of watching Bob learning to do the Hustle, a few years later, by following footsteps on a plastic mat laid out on the living room floor.
When “Only the Good Die Young” by Billy Joel comes on the radio or Pandora, I can still hear Pete belting out the song on a Saturday morning when I was trying to sleep! While Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker” brings me back to sitting in the old LTD, waiting for my dad to come out of a drugstore on Dodd Street in East Orange, just as the first flakes of a major snow storm began to fall.
And hearing “It’s Alright” by Ray Charles reminds me of the birth of my daughter, because he was singing that song on David Letterman as she entered the world! But it was “Born at the Right Time” by Paul Simon that was playing when I stopped home that morning for some sleep and a shower.
I can also remember the morning when I was shocked to discover that my sister Nancy liked to put on ‘elevator music’ when she did her house cleaning, and how she redeemed herself (in my eyes) when she would play songs from Phantom of the Opera and classical pieces during our family gatherings!
This reminded me of our mother, who would play her Harry Belafonte records while we cleaned the big house in East Orange, and that she loved the music of Leonard Bernstein, but Handel’s Messiah brings to mind her amazing voice, as was a part of the local Oratorio Society, and the church choir.
I cannot sing the hymn “This is My Father’s World” without hearing my father’s melodious voice singing along with me, and remembering what it was like to sit in the pew next to him in church, and how the power of his faith in God was evident in the sincerity with which he sung the hymn.
And lived the rest of his life…for that matter.
I have gained an appreciation for newer and different types of music from my daughter, and anytime I hear a song by Conor Oberst or something by Biggie, I am reminded of the music I listened to with her as we worked through a rough time in our lives. Then again, when I hear a boy-band, like N’Sync I am reminded of when I took her to the band’s “live” concert when she was nine, and what a great time we had there.
And of course my nieces and nephews have also had a powerful impact on my musical tastes, as they have exposed me to all kinds of music over the years, like Phish and Tool, not to forget the band that my niece Becky’s husband was a part of.
My friends have also had an influenced on my musical tastes: campfire songs like “Kumbya” remind me of camp-fires with the Johnson’s at their place in Massachusetts, half a house that was surrounded by lots of woods to explore. College friends turned me on to Peter Gabriel, U2 and gave me a new appreciation for bands like Pink Floyd, Yes and the Grateful Dead, and another friend helped me to see the beauty that can be found in a well-executed opera, as well as exposing me to the varieties of classical music that fill our world.
My ex-wife turned me onto performers like They Might Be Giants and Leonard Cohen, while whenever I hear REM, I remember going to their concert with my girlfriend Donna, who has shared her eclectic taste in music with me over the years, giving us many new memories! In addition, she has shared memories of the once popular local Blue Grass and Country club her parents, aunts and uncles patronized “back in the day”, and the impact this music had on the life of their family.
The music I have grown to love, and my openness to learning new music has come from the influence of all those around me, just as who I am and what I believe has been strongly affected (for better or worse) by those I love and care for. This is a reminder to me that we are all connected, that no one is an island unto themselves as we touch others in unexpected ways as we live our lives.
Often, we don’t realize what a gift we are to others, or how others can be a gift to us, but when we do, we can see that we all are in this together, and that we need each other to make it through this challenging world.
Instead of always focusing on what pulls us apart, we can focus on what brings us together…like enjoying a beautiful piece of music or singing a pop song together!
Sharing music is sharing life.
Ordinary Adventures 