Those Quiet Moments: Music is a Time Machine

I've probably said this at some time before but music is a time machine. 

Particularly when it's a song that you heard repeatedly during an era when there is a LOT going on.  Sadly in my life, there are clusters of songs that pull me back, HG Wells style, to another time period. 

The passage of time does not wear down this effect in any way, either. 

My Dad died in late August of 1980, and songs of that era, particularly from August, 1980 to July of 1981, flick some sort of internal switch, that brings an unease to my gut.  And back then, in that time period, my head and my heart hurt constantly for obvious reasons.   Unfortunately, my stomach would eventually then take on some of that pain.  

I would probably need to count on an abacus how many times I asked my mom to stay home, even a few times calling to be picked up from school.  It was too much for this 9 year old.  Dealing with not only the gap that now existed in my soul with the permanent loss of my father, but the fear that Mom wouldn't be there when I got home one day, either.  

Unproductive and irrational thinking, yes.  But this is how the mind of a child works. So some of these physical gears of melancholy begin to turn when I hear songs of that era.  

Music charts were more organized back then, because you were far from streaming, and still solidly entrenched in the era of physical media: LPs, cassettes, and 8-tracks.  And due to the way those charts worked, entertwined with radio, often songs crossed over from country to pop and back, more so then, than now. 

One time, waiting in line at a department store, I heard a song very faintly but clear enough to recognize over the sound system.  It was Juice Newton's Sweetest Thing (I've ever known).  My gut began to twitch, as I suddenly was that sad little 9 year old boy again, and right on the brink of tears while paying for my Diet Mountain Dew, an Anchor Bay C.H.U.D DVD, and a Clark bar. 

I couldn't get over the power. All those years later.  It was just as strong as it was when I would hear it over my Seville combination stereo in 1981. This happened lying on my side in my bedroom, hearing that overwhelmingly melancholy melody, floating in the same air as the AM/FM band's light glow, and the red "stereo" light's piercing of the dark.  I'd beg whatever powers that be to allow Dad to walk back into my room again.  At least one more time.

There's a slew of those songs that still have the power to break my heart and rend my soul.  The country and pop chart crossovers being Ronnie Milsap's Smoky Mountain Rain, Eddie Rabbitt's I Love a Rainy Night, Roseanne Cash's masterful Seven Year Ache, and Teri Gibbs' Somebody's Knockin'. 

Most of these anchored my mom's favorite radio station, WMAQ out of Chicago.  A hybrid station that specialized in country, but it wouldn't be out of place to hear 50's oldies mixed in with regularity, and the occasional pop chart tune. 

Oldies stations, man. They can kill me.  And for more than one reason. that name pisses me off, because what was once classic rock, is now oldies. 

Fuck, that's stupid.  

As time moves on, it's become necessary to change radio format lingo. Because what are real oldies called now then?  Tomb tunes?  Figure it out, people.  Oh, and another thing, I hate hearing Hall & Oates followed up by Guns N' Roses.  Who's running these stations anyway.  Radio sure has changed a lot since I got out of the game.

Anyways, back to the matters of the heart: Other songs can include Kim Carnes' Bette Davis Eyes, I Love You by the Climax Blues Band, Alan Parsons Project Time, Journey's depression farm Who's Cryin' Now? and the Petty and Nicks duet Stop Draggin' My Heart Around all have the ability to pluck my heartstrings and make my heart and gut get soaked in the downpours of sadness, because I'm pulled back to that one year window where I was a little kid spun up in the vortex of grief. 

One of the most nervous moments of my life was during my early days of broadcasting school, sitting in the booth awaiting my first shot at the microphone.  I hosted a show called "Ancient Alternatives" which had the premise of playing "deep cuts" from classic rock.  So, when the jock before me's last track ended, I faded into Nazareth's Please Don't Judas Me from their classic long player, Hair of the Dog.  Which was a mistake.  It's a long track, some 9:50 long, actually.  So, I had to sit there and wait through that mammoth tune, holding on for that moment where I would flick on the mic and say my first ever words to a listening audience.  It was unnerving and arduously tortuous.  To this day when I hear Judas, that apprehensive sensation in my gut returns, even if I have nothing to anticipate of a negative variety in the moment. 

It reminds me of something Greg Nicotero said when describing his first time seeing Dawn of the Dead.  It involved his DNA unraveling and being re-arranged. That applies to this moment. My first employment love was indeed radio, I wanted it to be my career, and I miss it.  So, even though that was a fearful, negative moment, it changed me. 

Coincidentally, our cat Frenchie doesn't usually allow me to listen to that Nazareth album, so much like getting Bloo to let me borrow The Night Before Christmas and Raylan to loan me the 1979 Christmas Batman issue, I have to ask permission of one of my pets to utilize something of mine.

Life has moments that craft us into what we eventually become. And the arts play a role in that.  Anyone that reads this site can see how books, film, and music have shaped me. 

For better or worse.