Memories of the Eternal Musical Backdrop of Our Lives
As I have written before, "Music is my mind-altering substance of choice."
I suppose that statement is also testament to the fact that we don't actually need a physical substance in order to change our moods.
I ended up starting to write this because I was remembering how it seems like every place I have lived has had its own sound;" it's own musical soundtrack that was representative of a particular period of my life.
Some of it doesn't actually make sense, at all... because the "sound" of a particular place is often created by music that wasn't around when I was originally living there!
I first grew aware of "using" music when I was doing my homework as about a 14-year old. I noticed that I was better able to get things done when the radio was on, rather than when I tried to work in silence.
My mom truly couldn't fathom why I would want "noise" when I was trying to work... but retrospectively, I'm pretty sure she didn't have any version of ADHD to contend with and manage.
View from our terrace, Spain late 1976; scan from an old photo)
My teenage years had a somewhat wistful and longing sound that was actually quite different from my few peers who seemed a lot more "angry and intense" than I was.
If I could characterize those years through a single song, it might be through Al Stewart's "time Passages," the lyrics of which include these lines:
Well the picture is changing
Now you're part of a crowd
They're laughing at something
And the music's loud
A girl comes towards you
You once used to know
You reach out your hand
But you're all alone... source
Much Later...
I found myself "Leaving Texas" after more than 20 years... which was somehow a particularly important turning point in my life.
Although it was already a bit of an "oldie" by then, I have saved a particular recording to "play me out" of the old neighborhood... and again, as I drove my moving van across the state line and into Hobbs, New Mexico.
Of course, specific music has more meaning to the first-hand listener... and sometimes that "life soundtrack" only makes sense to that one person.
I don't know why the sound of my years in Dallas, Texas and visiting my parents in Mesa, Arizona were both represented by 1990's "smooth jazz." It just is that way. But somehow, it always sounded "right."
And Now We Are Here...
The soundtrack sounds much the same... or maybe it's completely different.
That's the often-confounding and inexplicable thing!
But I do know that time has passed, because a lot of the music I remember from these various segments of life are now on the playlist on Classic Rock stations!
Meh... actually they aren't. Very little of what I listen to ever got played on the radio.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!
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Created at 2023-03-11 00:33 PST
0766/2021