I'm finally getting around to getting into this game. I discovered something as I thought about the soundtrack. For me, more often than not, the music doesn't conjure up memories of a specific place or time, but instead the "mood" that characterizes psychic states that are intimately connected to "the rhythm and rhyme of the poem of [my] life." Of course there are a few exceptions. Like the first song on the list which is connected not just to a feeling but to a very specific time and place. Here's the list:
Angie - Rolling Stones: it's late summer, on a hot day, and yet there's a hint of the frosts to come in the breeze that whispers in the tops of the trees surrounding my house. I'm in Nancy's car and she's singing along with Mick. We're 19 and 20. She lives in RI and I live in CT. We've been dating, but not exclusively, since we were 17 and 18. Met when we had the big summer romance when I worked at Camp Squanto and she used to come to New Hampshire with her family to camp on the weekends. We're parked in front of the house, getting ready to head out camping at Ender's State Forest. Thing is, that melancholy angst in Mick's voice is the perfect reflection of the heartbreak I feel. As hot as this relationship is about to become, it's filled with cool breezes of the coming frostiness. Ah the pangs of that first deep relationship that doesn't quite make it.
White Bird - It's a Beautiful Day and In Memory of Elizabeth Reed - The Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore: these songs can make me feel stoned even though it's been decades since I toked on a joint. There's something about the ethereal instrumental work of Duane Allman or Richard LaFlame (on violin in White Bird) that just grab my brain. I hear this and it's just like I'm walking the woods in the rain of November with joint in hand amazed at the nuanced colors of gray bark emerging from the mists and clouds. Or I'm in the darkness of my bedroom laying on the bed with shadows playing on the wall and I'm traveling through the universe. As I look back now, I'm not sure if I just happened to have access to very good pot, or if the mystic side of me came out when I got stoned. In the late sixties, early seventies, dope use kinda fell into two camps: the wild joy and good times a la the Merry Pranksters, or expanding one's consciousness a la Timothy Leary. I had a good time, but my consciousness was definitely expanded. I'm glad I heeded the warnings of my friends and never dropped acid. They saw how far out I traveled when we'd do some good hash and they all said that was far enough. They all said there wasn't enough string in the world to reel me back in if I flew any higher.
Moondance - Van Morrison: wintertime, at night, with a full moon. Walking down our half mile dirt driveway through the dark woods lit nearly as bright as a cloudy day by the bright lights of the moon. The snow is crunching under my feet. I'm a freshman or sophomore in high school. Most likely I got dropped off at the end of our road by a buddy after a dance or some other school event like play practice or Bear Facts. Sometime over the course of the night I got some time alone with a girl that made my heart go pitter-patter. Might of even had a little bit of Boone's Farm. I'll be up for hours writing pages and pages of a love note I'll pass to her in the hall come Monday. It's a marvelous night for a moon dance.
The Letter - The Boxtops: it's one of my first dances. 7th or 8th grade. It's the annual dance in the old gym (before the new high school was built) held after the Fall pep rally. The local band is doing a great cover of The Letter which is topping the charts. And the lead singer is friends with my sister. As is most of the band. And they actually talk to me when I make a request. Like a third of my class that has older brothers or sisters here, I've somehow managed to take on some of their "cool." At least for the night. Come Monday I'm not in with the in crowd.
It Don't Do No Good to Cry - Wild Weeds: the Wild Weeds are from a neighboring town and they have the number one song on the radio. Every class used to sponsor a dance as a fund raiser. The better the band the bigger the dance. Gretchen's class has hooked the Weeds! They're playing to a full house plus!!!! In Kelly Lane's cafegymnatorium. I'm with one of the prettiest girls in our class (and I can't even remember who it was!) And we're right down front with all the big kids and the groupies who are in love with Big Al.
Kelly Lane is the newest school in town. It's an elementary school but everyone uses their auditorium/gym/cafeteria for dances 'cuz the old gym at the high school is a cinder block echo chamber. And there are too many exits and entrances at the high school which makes policing the dances for drinking a nightmare for the chaperones. Tonight at Kelly Lane they've given up. Our whole junior-senior high school only has 600 kids and there's got to be at least that many here tonight. The little gym is packed and there are at least another 100 outside listening through the open doors. Granby is on the map. There's even kids from Windsor there tonight!
Can't You See - Marshall Tucker: the t-tops are off the built to order Camero Berlinetta and the tunes are cranked. The tach is just pushing 2 grand and I'm cruising easy at 70 on an open two lane through the countryside west of Fort Worth. And there's plenty more power if I care to mash down a little on the accelerator. Can't you see, oh, can't you see, what that woman, she been doing to me.
Sydney the Pirate - Mustard Seed Faith: Kurt and Heidi are with me in the red vomit (a 1970 red 4door Mercury Comet which was the twin to the Ford Maverick.) We're tooling up 219 past the reservoir headed to Winsted or Torrington to a coffeehouse or church. I've just discovered what grace is, and am starting a journey of faith. And the homemade 8-track tape -- yes! For real, an 8 track! -- and the home made tapes were playing the songs that sang out my heart. And it wasn't 4 verses of Rock of Ages with dirge-like organ.
Poiema - Michael Card: I'm juggling a full course load of graduate studies at Yale, a full time job, three teenagers, and who knows where Eileen and I even start to fit into this mayhem. It's not a certainty that I won't break completely apart. Something has got to give and it looks like it is gonna be me. By the grace of God I survive. Michael Card is singing what is the "rhythm and rhyme of the poem of my life" in a minor key. His song of his dark night of the soul tells the tale of my journey.
I promise I will never choose the darkness for the light, I swear by all that's holy I will not give up the fight. I'll drink down death like water before I ever come again, to that dark place, where I might make, the choice for life to end.....Thanks, Mel, for the chance to remember how much of my life reverberates in the chords of these songs. With every song I write down, four more come to mind. I'm not a musician, but music has always touched deep into the wellsprings of my soul. Music is much much more than simply accompaniment to the party. Truly I am one who fits the description of the old saying: the one who sings prays twice.
