It’s Literally Wednesday
Dave | May 16, 2012The Music Issue
A word about Eddie (who was fired from Eddie’s Attic last week)
Bob Ephlin purchased Eddie’s Attic in the summer of 2005 at the same time we were opening Little Shop of Stories in the space right right below it. The first thing Bob did was bring Eddie Owen back to the Attic. Sometimes the three of us would get together and discuss business. I was amazed at how hard — though the Attic had been open 13 years — they still worked at marketing. “Eddie, people should be lining up to come in here. You helped introduce the Indigo Girls, Shawn Mullins, Sugarland, Jon Mayer, the Civil Wars …” at which point Eddie stopped me and said, “All that and $5 will get you a beer.” The lesson I learned from Eddie on that day was that if you ever rested on your laurels, you were done for. I miss Bob, who sold the Attic late last year. Now I’ll miss Eddie. He’s a generous and genuine guy. We wish him the best with Eddie Owen Presents.
What is it about Music?
Are we highly open or susceptible to music during a certain period of our lives?
While stretching ideas so that “It’s Literally Wednesday” doesn’t become “It’s Literally the First Wednesday of an Odd Numbered Month,” I thought to write occasionally about other aspects of art besides literature.
A couple of weeks ago I put together a list of about a dozen of my favorite albums that I thought had at least poetic merit and looked up their release dates with the thought of talking about them around their anniversaries. On average the albums came out on August 18, 1971 with a standard deviation of one year, two months and three days — applying the eyeball method of statistical analysis — meaning that I first listened to the overwhelming majority of these albums during my second and third years of high school.
The plan for this week was to wax eloquently about Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” (released May 21, 1971), how Motown founder Berry Gordy didn’t get it / how a busy, funky sandwich shop fell quiet one afternoon when their turntable, toward the end of side one, downshifted from “God Is Love” to “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” / why the Detroit mix is superior / how it inspired other Motown artists like Norman Whitfield and Stevie Wonder to greater heights.
I realized that these blog entries of ancient albums would become extremely tiresome. But it did raise an interesting issue. I don’t think music was particularly better then than during any other period since — well, there was disco — but music resonated with me so much more at that age and those albums have remained close to me over the past forty years. That I lack that same bond with a single album I acquired since I was 25 strikes me as ridiculous, but I was wondering if it was common.
Then DM posted “What Album Most Reminds You of High School?” which was followed by 170 responses. That got me to thinking that maybe I am on to something.
I generally like movies as much now as I did in high school, and I enjoy theater and fine art much more. Literature and television, in my opinion, are better now than ever.
So what is it about music? Or is it just me? How old were you when music most resonated with your life? Or does it still?
This Week
Jonathan Odell, author of The Healing, Thursday, May 17th at 7p.m., Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, free.
Kayte Terry, author of Paper Made, Decatur Library Auditorium, May 21st at 7:15p.m., sponsored by Georgia Center for the Book, free.
Steve Coll, author of Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, Wednesday, May 23rd at 7p.m., Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, free.
Latest from Decaturish
Here’s what Eddie wrote on his Facebook page this morning:
“wow. thanx for all the love. the ones of y’all that know me know that responding to each individual, on the computer, would take me 72 days. and to all those media / press folk, sorry i haven’t called you back. it’s a pretty simple story. alex cooley owns eddie’s, the decisions are his to make. he who owns the coins makes the rules. he fired me. it doesn’t make him a bad guy, it’s just a business decision he thinks best. eddie’s is still open and having shows and booking shows, and decatur’s still a cool town. for 20 years i booked eddie’s based on the promise to you that whatever was on the stage, would not suck. i’ll be doing that very same thing with eddie owen presents at the red clay theatre in duluth. and that dream / vision for duluth is bigger that eddie, alex cooley and either joint, even combined. it’s a chance to impact and leave an imprint proving “live music matters”, that can far outlive alex cooley and me. listen y’all, there are plenty of really good stages / joints in this town, all sizes, and plenty of y’all to support all of them. at the end of the day for me, it’s about the song, please support any joint supporting that.”
As Bob Marley sang, When one door is closed another is opened.
All I know is that I don’t listen to music the same way I did when I was in high school. One of my favorite things was to buy a brand new record, put it on the turntable, put on the headphones, put my feet up on the footstool, and listen to it all the way through. By the time I was done, I had read every lyric if it was included with the album or every liner note if lyrics were not included. I would then repeat that process at least 15 times over the next week. Because of that, I can still remember every word of every song on Hotel California, Commodores Greatest Hits, Chicago II, Kansas Leftoverture, John Denver Back Home Again, Jackson Brown Hold Out, and so many more. I think Thriller could have been the last album I listened to in that way.
It is now rare that I listen to an entire album at once, let alone immerse myself in it. Back in the day, that immersion was more like the relationship I would have with a book. Now it’s mostly a world of shuffled songs, Pandora lists chosen for me, or XM specialty stations, and rarely do I have the time to concentrate and really learn many new songs.
I was going to say the same thing. When I was in high school and arguably, even college, I had loads of time to listen to my music and do nothing else. I survived on less sleep so I had more hours in the day, and much of what I did involved music–hanging out with friends, going to shows, going to clubs–so my music was an intrinsic part of me. Now, as a parent with a full-time job and a need for more sleep, I don’t have that time anymore. I don’t even have a commute anymore so I can’t listen to music that way either (but I’m happy to not have the commute!). Plus, naturally we’re far more impressionable as teenagers when we are finally discovering ourselves, discovering we don’t actually have to be the people our parents think we are/should be. So music is a very accessible way of identifying and experimenting with other people, genres, beliefs, styles, personalities, and moods.
Well said, Keith.
Although I can’t play or sing a note, music is just about as important to me as breathing. I am never without it; it’s in my car, my MP3 player, at work, at home, in the LP’s stored in the closet, the CD’s in another closet, on the computer, the iPad…
And it’s true that the music one listens to in their most formative years (i.e. teens) has the biggest impact. Every music lover remembers the album(s) that changed their life. If I had to choose one (which is nearly impossible) it would be “Bat Out of Hell.” It came out a few years before high school, but once I heard it as a 15-year old, there was no turning back. The angst, the wit, the wall of sound and, of course, the VOICE. Even now, 30 years after I first heard it, it’s still my go-to.
Know what I miss? That visceral reaction to the music the first time you hear it. The perfection of David Gilmour’s guitar solo in “Comfortably Numb,” the emotional overload of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the plaintiveness of Natalie Merchant’s voice in “Beloved Wife…” I miss it because, in my mid-40’s, I feel like I’ve heard it all. And I miss the joy of discovery.
Back then, music discoveries led to moments of obsession, when finding the tune that you couldn’t get out of your head took a little work, not just a few mouse clicks.
In NYC one ‘80s summer, I heard a small snippet of some brilliant old rock song and set out to find it beefore nightfall. Starting at 72nd and Broadway, I hummed what I could remember to at least a dozen record store clerks along the way. Ready to give up after a crazy 48 blocks, I made one final stop at a dive in Morningside Heights. The guy there smiled slowly (maybe even a little triumphantly) and proclaimed, “Ah, yes. I’m a flea bitten up monkey.” I walked out happy, with a copy of “Let It Bleed” and memories of (da da dum) The Search for for “Monkey Man.”
I think it’s like this:
Some of the time, going home, I go
Blind and can’t find it.
The house I lived in growing up and out
The doors of high school is torn
Down and cleared
Away for further development, but that does not stop me.
First in the heart
Of my blind spot are
The Buckhead Boys. If I can find them, even one,
I’m home. And if I can find him catch him in or around
Buckhead, I’ll never die: it’s likely my youth will walk
Inside me like a king.
Here’s a link to the rest of it.
http://www.ronwallacepoetry.com/rwp.html
Our own James Dickey
+1
I’m putting on “Dark Side of the Moon” while I consider my reply.
That’s great. I actually started a Pandora station based on The Zombies in order to reflect on the question. Each song was excellent. You might have seen me this afternoon, walking around Decatur, grinning.
My dad was a music freak and I was too. He was kind of a macho guy and loved country music, but that did not stop him from loving music theatre, too, and he would go around singing Phantom of the Opera because he was blown away by Sarah Brightman.
I had fallen into the routine of letting life get in the way of music, but when my dad passed away a couple of years ago (I was 48 years old then), I made a mix-CD of his music to play at the memorial service reception. Ever since then, I am on fire again to enjoy the stuff I listened to as a teenager (Rickie Lee Jones’ first LP has never grown old). But my soul has also been ignited by discovering Neko Case, the Frames and Glen Hansard, Dwight Yoakam, and many others.
Praise Be to the mp3 player.
“I was a free man in Paris”
“Help me, I’m falling in love, again”
Suite Judy Blue Eyes
Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end…