Musical Memories #1
Once, train travel ruled.
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So ... @slobberchops and @bozz each have this thing going on their blogs about music. Frankly, I think they’re in cahoots. I’m not sure why that should be, but my suspicions do point that direction. Anyway, their shenanigans have given me some of my own ideas about things to put on this blog. It needs a little fluffing up, but most of the ideas I come up with don’t fit the theme of this place -- and I’ve already played that game once already.
I had to take @theinbox off the @enchantedspirit blog and give it a home of its own because my spiritual / metaphysical / new age blog was never meant to be a curation way station. Now twenty-some posts are in one place and forty-some are in the other and TBH, it’s a mess. You see I fret about stuff like that -- which gives you a glimpse into my life in other respects. Make of it what you will.
But that “glimpse into my life” is taking on a theme of its own -- because I believe a person’s taste in music and movies and entertainment, well, it tells you something about him -- or her. More revealing in its own way, maybe than if I wrote an actual piece on exactly that. You see, character and psychology fascinate me. Psych was one of my majors in college. And Astrology is a personal passion.
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People try to fool you about themselves all the time -- or at least shape your thinking. They even fool themselves about themselves. I saw a meme the other day that said, “Become the virtuous person you think you already are.” Boy, doesn’t that say it? People are intriguing. Endlessly so. Especially once you get behind the facade.
So maybe I’ll learn some things about me in the posts I put here. I am self-reflective to a fault. My best friend from childhood whom I’ve known now going on 60 years sent me a book on my birthday. Women Who Think Too Much. I figure she’s trying to tell me something. Tag along for a while ... and you be the judge.
Anyway, a while ago @slobberchops wanted to know what was the first song you bonded with -- and it didn’t take me but a minute to come up with that long-ago piece of my past. Yep, it says something about my 7-year-old self -- and the person she became. So, too, I suspect, will the other pieces I put on this blog. Music. Movies. Books. It’ll keep me going for a while.
So, I got to thinking ... if the song linked above was the first one I fell in love with, what was the first song I remembered ... period? And, I think it was this one.
When I hear this, it’s nearly Christmas. I’m in the living room of my grandmother’s house in Lubbock, Texas. I’m still an only child, so that means I’m three years old. (My little sister was on the scene by the Christmas when I was four.) This song is playing on the radio. I’d heard it enough to know I didn’t like it. I couldn’t imagine why the people on the radio insisted on playing it so much. I still don’t like it. It has way too much of the big-band swing sound to it (of course, being Les Brown.)
The big band songs without exception pull up a whole panoply of memories and feelings in me, full of dread and terror and fist-clenching desperation ... as if I am immersed in the gray awfulness that was WWII in Europe. There is no way to explain this rationally. I wasn’t born until 1947. The war was well over by then. Why this should tug so hard at a deep-conscious connection from another time and place ... well, I have my explanations for it. You’ll have to come up with your own.
I was fully-grown ... probably in my 30’s ... before I made the connection that it was Doris Day singing this song. That still wasn’t enough to save it.
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Great song! I learned about Glenn Miller in high school and threw myself deep into big band music. There was so much good stuff going on back then music-wise. The first song I can actually rememeber would probably be something from the Beach Boys or the Ventures.
Well, it's great the big band era appeals to you -- and others, clearly. If they'd been depending on me for support they'd have all starved to death. I put up with them. That's about all.
<3
My daughter borrowed some CD's from my mum a few weeks ago. She's listening to all kinds of stuff at age 14, except mainstream charts. This isn't at all what I was like at that age. One of the CD'd was a Doris Day one.
I did yet another music post today, and would like to know what kind of person I am regarding my choices. The question is.. does my picture persona influence your decision?
Well, as you can imagine the little character revelations derived from something like this tend to come in bits and pieces. Your recent post on "the candy," for instance, suggests you're unusually open to what we metaphysical types call "epiphanies" -- little pieces of insight, joy or wisdom that come along just in the course of ordinary living.
Often these are so personally relevant or meaningful you can't really explain them in words. Other people just don't (and possibly can't) appreciate them the way you do. And yet, for you, they were magic -- as if Spirit itself stopped for a moment and whispered in your ear. Suddenly, life itself makes more sense -- and your perceptions are changed.
Something you didn't understand in exactly this way before becomes clearer, more logical, more profound. The cohesiveness of life itself reveals itself to you in that instant -- and you, too, are somehow changed.
All this suggests a level of connection, sensitivity and even "questing" in you that is ... well, unusual. These experiences are more common (by far) when you're at least open to them.
In my experience, people who recognize epiphanies and "life's little surprises" are more interesting, more dimensional -- more appreciative of mystery and wonder than "the usual sort." This at least alerts me to such possibilities in you -- and I expect I'll see more of it now.
As for the sweaty guy, he's growing on me. Like a best-friend's big, shaggy, way-too-friendly but much beloved dog, he's part of the package. Eventually you begin to see why your friend is so charmed by him -- why he puts up with his muddy bear-hugs, his sloppy I've-been-drinking-again face kisses and his coffee-table-clearing tail wags. Call that an epiphany, too -- and you're a better person for it.
The little surprises you mention in terms of the 'candy' article are in fact snippets of music that 'do it for me'. Most people think my taste of music is quirky and can't understand why I cant hear things on my first listen, and this is explained in an article I wrote what seems like an age ago now.
However, when they do 'sink in' I get a lot out of them, especially if they are complex pieces. I have yet to meet anyone who has this 'cracking the nut' problem I have.
They all say the same. 'I know on first listen if I like the song or not'. Sometimes it takes 10-15 listens for me to pick on something, or a 'hook'.
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