Back to My Music

It just dawned on my that in the last few weeks, as I worked on a program with a drop dead date, that I'd started to listen to CDs in almost the same way that I listened to record albums when I was a senior in college.

In those days we usually listened to the entire side of a record. (I can't remember if anyone had a record changer so they could listen to multiple sides without getting up.) In those days I was the only guy in a house with 8 or 9 other guys who did not have a turntable. It was more a matter of me feeling impoverished, rather than real impoverishment or an matter of self-denial. But, be that as it may, my time in that house had an accompanying soundtrack of Jimi Hendix, Cream, David Blue, Tim Buckley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Koerner, Ray, and Glover, and the Doors. To this day, when I hear a song from those albums I find myself anticipating the next track.

Those of us from that era seem to have listened to album the same way. The very first time the album was played we sat on the floor, back to the bed, transfixed by the liner notes. And the album played over and over again the tunes impressed into our brains. If the liner notes had the lyrics we remembered them from simple repetition. (Without the liner notes, "A girl with kaleidescope eyes" became "A girl with colitis goes by", "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" was sung as "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy", and "She's a must to avoid" got an unanticipated frisson as "She's a muscular boy.")

Now I have an old Aiwa boom box with a CD player. Sometimes I have to prop the boom box at an angle for some of the CDs to start to play, but once the CD starts I can lower the box and listen to the whole CD. And then start it up again and listen again. (It just occurred to me that I could press the repeat button.)

Occasionally I have to turn off the music so I can determine if a σ is the standard deviation for a population or a sample, but now the music has become the soundtrack to the program I'm writing.

Over the course of a few weeks I've played, Uakti's "Aguas da Amazonia" (music by Philip Glass), Paul Simon's "Graceland", John William's "The Ultimate Guitar Collection", Rosanne Cash's "Black Cadillac, the Dixie Chicks "Wide Open Spaces", and I'm now listening to David Berkeley's "After the Wrecking Ships".

Every once and a while I throw in Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra's "Viva!".

Some years ago I bought a Richard Thompson CD and was not impressed by what I heard. I listened to it as background music. I gave the CD another listen to confirm my opinion, but for some reason I decided to read the insert as I listened and my opinion changed. The very dull lightning flash: it's words AND music. It was something I'd managed to overlook in the need to actually get something done.

Perhaps it's something to look forward to in retirement.