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not that everyone is as totally dominated and influenced in their comings-and-goings as i have been with music, i can see how some people fixate on the collective musical memory of certain time periods... and never leave. perhaps it's a coming-of-age thing for a lot of people: maybe it was the first time they were free to be the asshole the always wanted to be, or there was some life-changing event, or just because their friends wouldn't be friends with them unless them conformed to the same soundtrack. many find that nice, comfortable, predictable rut, scored by familiar tempo, musicianship or lyrics... and embrace it like the womb. my boss, here at the Gulag (a spitting image of "Neil" from the Young Ones) graduated in music at VCU...but more often than not, will dredge up the most grotty of stoner crap from Haight-Ashbury. Akebono, on the other side of the Green Wall, likes his Dead. excessively. two songs, back-to-back, are "excessive" to me. in fact, it took a long time for me to warm to the acting abilities of KevinKline due to his performance in TheBigChill: when he lectured punky JeffGoldblum, pontificating about his dreary hippie music by saying "there is no other music", i gagged. oh, yes... by all means, let's hear the off-key screeching of "Layla" again country rock? the same thing applies. i almost got the shit beaten out of me at a field party, once, when "FreeBird" was played for the thirtieth time that evening, and i made a smart comment about it. you could have heard the proverbial "pin" drop, so swiftly did all eyes draw a bead on me. it was the same thing when "DreamOn" spooled up. what the fuck is it about dreary, unending rock ballads? why are they considered hymns? why do the half-assed slide guitar solos want me to poke my ears out? what started this whole diatribe was the state of my mind when i awoke, this morning. it was a "seventies" state. i lived, then, and endured only because i had to... because until the latter half of the decade, it was hard to swallow. unless you liked polyester... or perms on guys... and granola. thank god for funk music and the decay of England and the rise of punk music, or i'd never have survived. case in point: for some ungodly reason, my retention of the most absurd crap is unerring (i can't remember anything else Important, or Relevant)... that is why the insipid melody of "Moonlight, Feels Right" by Starbuck had to happen in my head. never mind that i hadn't heard it in eons, and there was nothing in particular that triggered it. it was there. and god, it sucks. Fate, in her unending irony, had something else for me, minutes later: when i detected the syrupy strains of OliviaNewton-John at the grocery... "Please Mister, Please (don't play B-17)". yes, for god's sake... DON'T. this shit happens all the time. ...and sometimes, it can be cruel, too. having given up on the tax return showing up at a reasonable time (this being the final split of those assets with my estranged "wife")and make one trip do for all , i drove the long distance down to meet her on Sunday, so she could sign the state return, and i could deliver some of the last of her belongings. on the way, i heard "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" by Stars pop up on the XM. i wished it hadn't. not because it wasn't a good song, or the melody wasn't memorable...but because it made me think about when that day will come. the musical gods conspire in some pretty awful ways. i could always turn the radio off, but there's no "pause" on my brain. |
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