The Sonic Window
Years ago, during the summer between junior high and high school, I was with my older brother watching an NFL game at his friend's house. To date stamp it, the Steelers were one of the teams playing and Terry Bradshaw was a rookie that year. Bradshaw is now an addled geezer who works for Fox Sports doing commentary.
The football game that night was forgettable. It was a pre-season game, after all. What was memorable was that the friend's dad knew I played the trumpet. At some point during the game, he told me he had always loved music, especially the dance music of his youth. After the game fizzled to its inevitable conclusion, he made a point of finding one of his favorite records from back in the day. Then he put it on the turntable and turned up the volume. The expected initial litany of pops and clicks of an old LP was soon replaced by a basic drum track quickly joined by a honky tenor sax, piano, and bass. It was a simple tune, as in a hand off, three yards, and a cloud of dust. No wait, that was Michigan football under Bo Schembechler. Actually, it was a basic dance tune from the early 50s, with four chords and an eight-bar sax solo in the middle that would now be the domain of a middle-school jazz combo.
But the friend's dad loved the tune. "Dig that beat," he said with a glint in his eye, snapping his fingers. I told him I thought the tune was great—something we might play in jazz band. Not. He (dad) then went on to tell me that he wished he would have learned to play an instrument. But now it was too late. After playing another couple of songs, the record was plucked from the turntable and returned to the paper sleeve and jacket. Soon after, we left for home.
I still remember the incident, especially how stripped-down and basic the tunes were. But it was the popular dance music of its time—music that would be overshadowed within a decade by the cyclone called the Beatles and the British Invasion. But what remains is how the friend's dad loved the music—and how much it meant to him. It reminds me of how the music from one's youth is not only formative, it sticks to one’s mainframe like proverbial fly paper.
It's the music from our youth that can instantly transport us back. Thank god it's not the clothes we wore at the time. Some of the more rarified offerings from my teenage wardrobe would have qualified me for the clown car. It was, after all, the 70s. A time when people dressed like every day was Halloween. But it’s the music that takes us back to when we were young, clueless, and generally bereft of consequences software. When we could not only sleep for extended periods of time--we could actually sleep late because we had nothing else to do. Jobs were part time summer gigs. Hanging out with friends was a daily thing, as was listening to music. Records then cost less than $6 each. Double albums, for the record (rim shot), almost broke the bank.
I'll save how different the experience of listening to an entire LP vs. today’s playlists for another time. What's front and center today is how the music of one's youth sticks with us into the future, perhaps a lifetime. Hopefully, it's good music, but no guarantees there. Thankfully, I managed to somehow avoid the latent polyester disco excess of the late 70s.
Most of the tunes of my sonic youth have aged well. But I was listening to a song called “And You and I” off the Yes album Close to the Edge the other day. The band was brilliantly talented across the board. Listening now, the lyrics to the song are beyond Marin County. But back in the day, I thought the tune was an amazing sonic tapestry, with soaring melodies and blazing mellotrons. Now, maybe not so much.
Sometimes, I think there's a window of sorts when it comes to the formative music of one's youth. When the combination of an uncluttered hard drive, copious free time, and youthful attention span creates a cerebral sponge that absorbs tunes of the day. The window seems to be open between the ages of 12 and 22, which roughly spans middle school through undergrad years. For some, like the Gaiser siblings, the window opens earlier because music was constantly on in our house from the time we were sprats.
I also think one can latch on to new music as time goes on. With various online music services like Spotify and Tidal, it's easier than ever. But one has to make the effort to listen to new things. Otherwise, the music window from the old days becomes a series of ruts which may parallel the grooves in our brain matter.
The formative music window phenomenon seems to be a constant, at least in Western Culture. It was definitely a thing for my daughter Maria. I know that because there are over 60 Britney Spears songs in my iTunes. Maria added them at one point in the past saying I needed to have a good representation of Britney's oeuvre. For the record (that phrase again), I don't think I've ever made it through the entire list. But I probably will in the future.
In the end, I'll always listen to the music of my day. After all, it's pretty good; The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Doors, Cream, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Jeff Back, Steely Dan, and more. Then there's all the music I listen to by really old dead guys that I studied in school. You know, like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler. They were pretty good too.
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