I Got The Music In Me

I considered writing another political post, but since Tim and I have both gotten in trouble this week for our political views, I decided to go into the weekend gently and touch on something a bit less controversial.

Music

I grew up an only child and spend a great deal of time alone on days I couldn't convince the neighborhood boys to play baseball with me. Sometimes I wrote poems and stories, sometimes I played Monopoly alone, (I know, mega-pathetic) but mostly, I listened to music.

I had a radio and a stereo and piles of records. My Dad’s friend owned a local bar and when they changed out the records in their jukebox, he gave my dad the old 45’s for me. I bought new records with any money I got my hands on, and taped things off the radio.

This was a tricky process, because if I was waiting all day for some groovy song like Terry Jacks “Seasons in the Sun” to finally play, as soon as it would come on, my Mom would invariably yell something into my room like “Get your bike out of the driveway, it’s time for your Dad!” and every time I listened to my tape of Seasons in the Sun I would silently curse my mother for her bad timing.

I listened to Casey Casem’s Top 40, and watched American Bandstand every week. Sometimes I stuck around for Soul Train, too. I wrote down the names of all the songs, singers and any random trivia they had to impart. I got records and played them over and over again and wrote down the lyrics. Once I learned the words, I sang them into my hairbrush in the mirror and fancied myself a rock star in the making.

When I was lonely, music was my friend.

On one stellar week, I conned some boys to come in and play Partridge Family with me. I made them sing the Partridge Family's "I Woke Up In Love This Morning" into the mirror on my pink vanity table. I even tried to create some cheesy choreography. There was an actual tambourine involved. As you can imagine, this didn’t go over very well with the boys. I had to catch frogs in Meadowbrook Lake with them for three days straight to win back my street cred.

But I digress.

I have immersed myself in music my entire life.

I listen to it, I sing it, I write it, I pimp it, and I breathe it. There is no gift anyone can give me that is as precious to me as a new song I haven’t heard that moves my soul. At our age, days can become quite routine, we get up, we go to work, we drive home in annoying traffic – and sometimes like a gift from God himself as we flip the radio dial something wonderful spills out into the air and inspires us, takes our breath away, and makes our heart feel alive again.

When I am empty, music fills me.

When I hear “Sunshine on my Shoulders" I think of Ted Root and the 8th Grade Girls Ensemble where he taught us to sing it with echoes; I still hear the other girls voices in my head.

When I hear “Baby You Can Sleep While I Drive” I think of my years on the road with CP and all the nights we drove the highways of America taking turns sleeping, singing, driving, laughing – a magical part of my life’s story.

When I hear Counting Crows sing “Long December” I think about the day I got the “it’s been so long since I’ve seen the ocean line” caught in my head and went home and told Jeff I wanted to move to California. Yes, I am the sort of woman who makes major life choices based on pop song lyrics.

When I need motivation to change, music provides it.

When I was 21, I experienced tragedy. I was traveling cross country with my theatre friends and fell asleep at the wheel while I was driving. One of my friends was killed. Two were critically injured. I thought I would die from the pain, and to be frank it’s still something I live with.

Not much survived the crash, but my Dan Fogelberg “The Innocent Age” tape made it out unscathed. I listened to nothing but that tape for at least a year. It was about lost innocence, confusion, and all the swirl of emotions I was trying to make sense of after this horrifying event.

I didn’t see a shrink; I didn’t take anti-depressants although God knows I was depressed. I received powerful guidance via correspondence (Paper, ink, stamps, and days between responses. Anyone remember that?) from an Episcopal priest I met on the road in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I listened non-stop to Dan Fogelberg.

“Storybook endings never appear
They're just someone's way of leading us here

Waiting for wisdom to open the cage

We forged in the fires of the innocent age

Back at the start it was easy to see

No one to own to, nowhere to be

Deep in the heartlands a sad memory calls to me

Fretful horizons, worrisome skies

Tearful misgivings burning your eyes

Yearnings unanswered, reckon the wage you pay

To recapture the innocent age.” – Dan Fogelberg

When I was broken, music fixed me.

Friends, I have ten more pages like this in my head, but at the risk of Tim kicking me off his blog and replacing me with another “She Said” I’ll stop now and save the rest for future posts. –Tammy Lou