Opaque Lucidity

Music Of Our Lives

Today was one of those days that seemed bad for no good reason. Nothing went wrong at work; the home is as stable as ever. But for some reason, I didn't want to talk to anyone all day. I sat down earlier this evening to remove some podcasts off my Nano and I realized that I haven't loaded any music on it in weeks. That's probably part of the problem.

So I started going through our iTunes library (which is a mess with duplicates and files with labels like "Track 4") and transferring some tunes to my constant companion. I had to laugh, because I thought of Kelli and how she always says I have weird taste in music. She's right---I can listen to The Fray or Neil Diamond. But every song I like enough to keep and listen to over and over resides in my mind not because of lyrics or melody, but because of the time it represents in my life.

We went to high school in the 80's, so I could write a book on the meaningful music from that decade. Most of it reminds me of the rougher times: breakups, loneliness, fear of an uncertain future. I look at most of the stuff from that decade with a sort of sappy nostalgia occasionally mixed with a tinge of bitterness over the stupid mistakes I made that still have an effect on my life.

With the onset of the 90's, the music memories become much more focused. There is Rod Stewart's "Downtown Train", the first song I heard when I graduated from boot camp (go without listening to music for eight weeks and see what kind of stuff gets stuck in your head---I had to listen to "How Great Thou Art" about 20,000 times). Or Journey's "Wheel in the Sky", a song that was on the first CD I ever bought. Of course, there is "Unchained Melody", the song that played during the famous clay pot scene in the film "Ghost". Kelli and I went to see that on our first date in November, 1990; I didn't know it then, but we would dance to it eight years later on our wedding night.

The Gulf War ended several weeks before I graduated from Naval Nuclear Power School; it was a magical time filled with stress, relief and the knowledge that I was going home to Kelli, who was now officially my girlfriend but who I had not seen in seven months. The song playing on that long drive home from Orlando was Rod Stewart's "Rhythm of My Heart". You have to hand it to Rod: he's been there for a lot of us. Do you remember any of the words? "Where the ocean meets the sky, I'll be sailing." It made me feel like Admiral Nelson.

Most of the music from the mid-90's reminds me of Dallas: the club scene, the 110-degree days spent in a delivery truck, the days when we didn't know from where the rent money was going to come. It all seems to be encapsulated now in the Butthole Surfer's "Coming Down the Mountain": "then he lost his leg in Dallas/he was dancing with a train". A train is as good a euphemism as any, I guess.

I could go on, but I've rambled enough for one evening. There's a lesson here somewhere, and I think it's that everything we create or participate in---a photograph, a winning game, a podcast---can be an impression in someone's memory. I hope anything I leave you triggers good, happy thoughts...or at least not sad ones.