Tag Archive for: music

Mom and Kenny Rogers

,
KennyRogers.jpg
By John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA – KennyRogers, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75141455

Kenny Rogers died last night. He was my mom’s absolute, first-line celebrity crush. She used to joke that she would marry him in a second if he showed up at her door. Every time we got in the car to head out to cross-country ski, we would settle in to our prescribed places in her baby blue Volkswagen square back and she’d pop in a cassette and crank the volume. If it was a sunny day, we’d roll the windows down and sing along, she and I, while Katy stared out the window trying not to get carsick and Chris cranked up the sound on his Walkman to drown us out.

I don’t know that I was a massive fan of Kenny Rogers, but I loved the effect his music had on Mom. Before she and Dad divorced, he was pretty much in charge of the music for road trips – Doobie Brothers, Little River Band, those were his choices and I never really thought about whether or not Mom would have chosen them. But after the divorce, it was Kenny Rogers and Anne Murray in Mom’s car, belted out with feeling. I think I get it more now. After my divorce I had the sensation that there was more room in the world for my choices, that while I hadn’t disliked the music or trips my ex chose, I hadn’t ever felt fully free to stretch my limbs out in to space and freely choose what I would have preferred.

My ex and I had similar taste in music – we both grew up with Def Leppard, Led Zeppelin, The Cars, The Rolling Stones, Mötley Crüe. But I also loved REM, 10,000 Maniacs, Depeche Mode, and The Thompson Twins. As young adults, he drifted toward Green Day and The Killers, which I liked, but I stockpiled Indigo Girls and Annie Lennox and Pink as well, which he jokingly called “chick music.” It was really a seamless, unspoken understanding that when he was in the car, we’d listen to his preferences and when he wasn’t the girls and I could indulge ourselves with our girly stuff.

Right now, as mom is sequestered inside her assisted living facility, safely taken care of but also on hospice, I am resisting pulling up the audio of “If I Ever Fall in Love Again” because I know it will push me over the edge of this lump in my throat in to a crying jag and I’m not ready. I’m reserving it because I cry at least once a day now, and I find a sweet release, but this cry will be different. It will be the tears I shed for the loss of my mom’s voice. The only place I can hear it now is in my own head and I don’t want to waste it or erase it or cover it up with Kenny and Anne singing to each other. It will be the tears I shed on behalf of mom because she won’t know that he’s gone and couldn’t grieve for him. It will be the tears I shed for the idea that I might not see Mom again if she dies before they lift the ban on visitors. I want to sit with her and hold her hand one more time, maybe sing some lines from The Gambler to her and dig deep in to her reserves one time to see if her spirit can conjure up that feeling of freedom, wheeling along the highway, windows down, one hand surfing the waves of air as we laugh and harmonize on our way to play in the snow together.

“You got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run…”

Music and Memory

Hey  –
The Fixx are playing in Seattle on Aug 28th –  if you don’t have plans for that night, you should really take L to see them.   They’re in Portland the night before and I just got tickets for that show . . . 


My brother emailed me sometime in June to give me a heads up about this show. I’m incredibly grateful because there’s no way I would have found my way to it without his suggestion. I am notoriously horrible about names – band names, song names, celebrity’s names. In the moment, I couldn’t conjure up even one song The Fixx was known for, but I knew if my brother was cueing me, I’d know them when I heard them. 

I bought tickets that day. 

As a junior-high kid (we didn’t call it middle school in the 70s and early 80s), I went to a lot of concerts – most of them with my big brother. Mom went to a few with us, but eventually, I think she burned out and decided that if I tagged along with C, there would be no hijinks, even though the nearest big city for concerts was Portland, which was a two-hour drive from home. I was the happy recipient of that policy, although C has pretty eclectic taste in music. We went to see Debbie Gibson, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, as well as REO Speedwagon, ZZ Top, Metallica, and Judas Priest. He knew all the songs – A and B sides – and which albums they were featured on. He sang along with them all, knew when the drum solo or guitar solo would come, knew the names of each band member and which other bands they’d been in. He still does. He’s a walking encyclopedia of music, and I trust his taste. Every year he sends me a CD for my birthday and while sometimes it’s a performer or band I know (Tom Petty, Steely Dan), other times it is an entirely novel act, but I always love it. He knows what I’ll like and respond to. 

As a kid, I used to listen to the album for whichever band we were going to see next obsessively, reacquainting myself with the lyrics and the rhythms. I could remember songs really well, but I never knew their names or which album they were on or who was playing which instrument. I never really felt the need to catalog that or keep it in my brain. 

My big brother is 50 now and I can’t even begin to imagine the number of concerts he’s been to in his life. He goes to about two a month, at big venues and small, and he always has recommendations for me. On the day of The Fixx concert in Seattle, I woke up to a series of text messages from him, complete with photos of the show he’d just seen and a review of how great it was, which albums they played music off of, and which songs were the best. I smiled and got excited for my own experience. But unlike when I was younger, I didn’t seek out any of the music to refresh my memory. I went in cold, as did my daughter. She was definitely the youngest person in the crowd, but as a musician herself, she’s usually up for a concert (especially if I’m paying).

As the early strains of “Are We Ourselves” began to play, I felt a warmth in my belly. When the lead singer pointed his microphone out toward the audience, I knew exactly where to come in and what the tune was. It happened again with “Saved by Zero,” “Red Skies,” “Stand or Fall.” At one point, I leaned over to speak into L’s ear and tell her that I was reminded of sitting on C’s bedroom floor, playing cards and listening to music – these very songs. Had we not gone to this concert, I’m not sure I would have ever thought about The Fixx or been prompted to seek out their music. I simply hadn’t remembered they existed. 

There is a lot that I don’t remember about my childhood, a lot I dissociated from as I tried to find a way to survive emotionally in the firestorm of days after my brother disappeared and my parents divorced. I’ve been researching polyvagal theory lately as part of my work with adolescents and trauma and trying to understand how our bodies protect us by disconnecting from so much of what is going on around us. As I listened to the band play and felt the comforting memories of hanging out with C, listening to music, I wondered, is music the way in to those memories I want to have?

As I let my mind play with that thought, I realized that I was feeling calm and peaceful, that I was recalling the safety of being my big brother’s little sister, remembering a mundane, “normal” childhood activity that must have happened dozens of times in those frightening, sad days. I’m not so sure anymore that what I want is to use these memories to push my way in to other ones. For now, I’m simply basking in the reminder that my brother and I shared a connection through music, that it was his way of being in relationship with me and showing me the ropes, leading with his passion and inviting me in to share it. What a beautiful gesture, what an amazing, seemingly simple way to be part of each others’ lives, even though we haven’t gone to a concert together in decades. 

I’m so grateful to have these kinds of memories come back to me as I get older, to remind me that there are myriad ways to connect with others, and that the ones that come most easily, most naturally, are often the ones that endure. I hope that someday my big brother and I can go to another concert together, but in the meantime, I’m definitely listening for his advice on which ones I should buy tickets to myself. 

A Real Housewarming

, ,

One year ago today, I was surrounded by a group of amazing women who helped move Eve and Lola and I in to our new home. They packed boxes, cleaned cupboards, organized movers, found screwdrivers, and held me up during an incredibly difficult time. The transition from a life I loved and knew and assumed I’d always have to a mostly blank canvas felt simultaneously frightening and exciting, awfully sad and tinged with possibility. I was able to experience the full range of emotion precisely because of these women who showed up, who loved me and my daughters, and who helped me feel safe.

I am so incredibly grateful and so lucky to have such people in my life.

In my previous life, there had been lots of dinner parties and events – many occasions to host friends and family and fill the house with laughter and great food.

In the last year, I’ve hosted scores of the girls’ friends for both impromptu study sessions/girls’ nights and planned Halloween or New Year’s gatherings, but I’ve not felt like I was quite ready to host something on my own for grown ups. Until now.

It wasn’t supposed to be a housewarming party, but it turns out that this morning, my new home feels properly “warmed.” Last night, I hosted a house concert as a fund raiser for Eat With Muslims, an organization started by two women in Seattle to try and build community and understanding of Muslim culture and individuals who are Muslim using food (brilliant!). Sheryl Wiser, a local singer-songwriter suggested that we do it as part of her Pies + Persistence project that raises money for nonprofits who are working for social justice and human rights in the face of this current Presidential administration’s often horrific policies. She would play music, and Lola (who has been working furiously on her own original music for over a year) would open the performances with three of her songs.

We put out the word on social media and via email and the house filled up with amazing salads, deli trays, the most delicious Somalian chicken and rice dish I have had in my lifetime, and cranberry pie (tart). So many of us didn’t know each other when the evening started, but the conversation never lagged and the plates were never empty. We sat and stood around the kitchen island laughing and telling each other about our lives and when it came time to sit for music, my heart was full. My house was full of people ranging in age from teens to 70+, enjoying each others’ company with the dogs weaving their way around the room sniffing for scraps.

The music was beautiful and heartfelt and mesmerizing, and people stayed afterward to continue chatting and laughing. When I fell in to bed just before midnight, I was grinning from ear to ear. I can’t think of a better way to flood our new home with love and positive energy than by gathering a group of people for food and music to support the hard work of women making a difference one dinner party at a time.

This life, it is a joyful one. There are good people in our midst doing amazing things. I can’t wait to throw another party.

Ear Worm Analysis (as opposed to dream analysis)

I have begun a new writing project. I’m not sure whether it is simply something I will do every morning as sort of a free-writing exercise to “get the juices flowing” so to speak, or if it will turn into something. At this point, I’ve given up trying to predict what will bear fruit and what won’t. I have proven myself to be woefully inaccurate at that. So often, I send out something for publication that I think is really damn good and it gets roundly rejected over and over again and then I will write something here on the blog that gets a tiny readership and folks respond by saying it ought to be spread all over the place for more people to see. (By the way, anytime you feel that way about anything I write, you are hereby given permission to share, share, share. Just sayin’…)


Anyway, this new project was spurred by the fact that I wake up each and every morning with a snippet of a song in my head – like an ear worm that I inflict upon myself. The song is generally different every day, and it often takes me half an hour or so to even notice that it’s been playing in the background for a while. It is my brain’s elevator music, but stuck on one phrase so that it plays the same lines over and over again.  I am pretty sure I was in my 30s before I realized that this is something not everyone does – wakes up with music playing in their head.  


I don’t remember my dreams except for maybe a few times a year, but the other day it occurred to me that perhaps there is just as much good information in the songs in my head. After all, they must be a function of my subconscious, right? Last week, I decided to start writing them all down along with a little journal entry and see if I can find a pattern. Of course, the first thing I worried about was that I might somehow subconsciously influence myself simply by paying attention, so I do my best to write about it and forget it during the day. 


I’m six days in and so far, I have no clue. The songs have run the gamut from annoying pop songs (although, interestingly, not ones that the girls tend to listen to a lot – they are more into independent singer/songwriter stuff or, in Lola’s case, Panic at the Disco) to, yesterday morning, the theme song from James Bond – I shit you not. Try writing that one down. There are no lyrics. It’s just “dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun…DUN-DUN.” 


If nothing else, it is a reason to plant my butt in a chair and write first thing in the morning, and that I appreciate. Because my brain is so suggestible when it comes to music, if I don’t record the song before I see or talk to anyone else in the morning, it could easily be replaced by another one that the girls are listening to as they get ready in the morning. Or, if Bubba is home, he delights in planting obnoxious songs in my head just to see if he can – his favorite ones are Guns ‘n Roses songs because I can’t stand them. 


I’ll keep paying attention for the time being to see if I can discover any trends or valuable insights, but in the absence of that, at least I’ve got something to write about every day. 

Musical Memories of Dad

, , , , ,

This banjo is sitting in the corner of my living room. For the first few weeks it was here, it sat inside its case because I wanted to make sure my head and heart were clear when I finally opened it up.  It belonged to my dad, and even though he died nearly six years ago, his wife only recently began packing up his things and figuring out what to do with them. She knew I wanted the banjo, but she couldn’t find it in any of the places she expected it to be and then one day, as she lie on her bedroom floor fishing underneath the bed for a roll of Christmas wrap, her fingers bumped up against the black faux-leather case.

I brought it home, having only unzipped the case once or twice to peek inside and marvel at its pristine condition (although I shouldn’t have, my dad was a Marine in every sense and took impeccable care of his things).  When I finally sat down in the living room to take it out all the way – Bubba off on a business trip and the girls away at school for the day, weak February sunshine filtering through the leaded glass windows – time stopped.  I don’t remember hearing anything from inside or outside the house; no dogs barking or airplanes soaring by, no hum of the refrigerator or the dryer. Of course, that is impossible, but I felt weighty and deliberate as I gently lifted it out by the neck and the body, careful not to smear fingerprints on the shiny chrome or twang one of the strings and break the spell.  Nestled beneath the banjo itself was a songbook and instructional manual by Pete Seeger and I nearly cried out when I saw it. Dad was a huge folk music fan. We grew up listening to the Kingston Trio and The Mamas and the Papas and Dad, while he couldn’t read a note of music, could hear a song once or twice and pick it out on the banjo or the guitar or the piano.  I don’t recall how often it happened, but I have fond memories of sitting cross-legged in the living room in a small circle with my sister and brothers while Dad taught us “Froggie Went-A-Courtin'” and “Greensleeves” and we had sing-a-longs.  I remember his long freckled fingers with the ridged nails and knobby knuckles picking and bending the strings in perfect time as our little troupe swayed back and forth singing with great gusto.

Laying the banjo across the couch cushions, I picked up the songbook and flipped through, hoping for some handwritten evidence of Dad somewhere within. His distinctive scrawl, always in pencil, shaped by the tremor in his hands, didn’t show up anywhere.  I was deflated.  I think I was looking for some message from beyond.

In the months since that day, I have walked by the banjo many times as it sits propped up in a box in the corner, neglected. I would love to learn how to play and have often thought about picking up that instruction book to give it a shot, but I’m both afraid and intrigued by what the music would do to me, what doors it might open if I do, indeed, figure out how to strum that banjo to play the folk songs of my childhood.  Occasionally as I walk past, I can smell the scent of cherry tobacco that came from Dad’s pipe and I am suddenly in the middle of that living room with the green shag carpet and the gold velour couch and swivel chair, Dad leaning back with the newspaper and the pipe smoke wafting gently to the flecked ceiling. My thoughts drift to the brother we lost during that time and I quickly shut the door of my mind.

Last Friday, Bubba and I took the girls out for dinner to a place in our neighborhood we’ve never been before. As we sat and waited to order, I became aware of the music playing and my heart swelled.  Throughout our fantastic meal, an entire Jim Croce album played, each song in the order I remember: Time in a Bottle, Operator (That’s Not the Way it Feels), Rapid Roy (The Stock Car Boy), Bad Bad Leroy Brown, You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, One Less Set of Footsteps, I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song.  The girls kept getting annoyed with me, alternately because I was singing along with the songs and because I got lost in my reverie and dropped the thread of our conversation.  I know they don’t understand the pull of this music for me and the melancholy memories, but it was such a lovely warm feeling to be surrounded by Dad, laughing at the absurdity and playfulness of some of the lyrics as well as the innocence and sweetness.

Even though Dad was not a musician by trade, nor would he ever have considered that a possible career, one of his purest joys was music and it was often the one thing that we could all agree on.  The soundtrack to our summer road trips featured folk artists as well as popular music from The Doobie Brothers and The Little River Band (Dad was not a Beatles fan at all). More often than not, we would pop in an 8-track, roll all the windows down and sing together in what we thought was perfect harmony. And it turns out, it was.

The Doors: Then and Now

This one’s for Chris. He was that guy in high school that was consumed by music. He was the DJ for all the school dances and knew about concerts and new albums slated to debut before anyone else. More than that, though, he has a superhuman ability to listen to music with a critical ear and pull out the nuances of songs and melodies that the rest of us find “nice” or “pleasurable” or “awesome” and name them, describe them, flesh them out and give them life. Yup, Chris’ superpower is music. I love reading his blog because even if I don’t know many of the bands or songs he writes about, he gives them life in a way that nobody else can. And generally inspires me to stretch myself and my music habits. So, Chris, this one’s for you.

“Show me the way to the next Whiskey Bar,” Jim Morrison croons in that playful, choppy, dancing cadence and I close my eyes and imagine his unruly head of curls bouncing as he prances across the stage. While I own this song, I haven’t chosen to play it in a long time; maybe 20 years, if I’m forced to calculate.
I love The Doors. There is something about their music that sets me down squarely in a beat-up cabin in Central Oregon, watching the melting snow drip from the eaves as I shiver beneath layers of musty old quilts, thick with the smell of cigarettes and marijuana and sweat. It was during one such weekend that I read the biography of Jim Morrison and was alternately enthralled and disgusted by his life of excesses and childishness, his absolute genius with lyrics and poetry and magnetic, mesmerizing charm.
During the week I was a college student, dutifully plugging away in biology and chemistry classes on a Presidential Scholarship, fulfilling my parents’ edict that I get a degree and Become A Success. By 3:00 on Friday afternoons, I was often headed out to the mountains with my high school boyfriend and a carload of his skateboarding rogues, not to return to my other universe until Sunday night. I stepped out of the predictable and planted my right foot smack in the middle of a soggy, muddy place driven by the most basic desires. Sleep when you want. Eat what you want. Say what you want.
I knew I couldn’t exist in both places for long and reading Jim’s biography was the beginning of the end for me. I simply couldn’t envision a life run by carnal needs. Perhaps because this life was perpetually dark, or at least dim. The lighting in the cabin was poor thanks to the monumental trees that surrounded it and the beating the place had taken over the years. Sleeping late meant we were up late, squinting at each other, the light from the fireplace and the cherries of our cigarettes the only illumination. The mood of the music, The Ramones, The Doors, Sid Vicious, was always dark and angry or melancholy and depressing – even when it pretended to be a rallying cry to action.
I gradually moved away, spending more weekends on campus. Pleading exams or papers due, I was able to extend my days bathed in the fluorescent lights of the dorms or the sun in the quad. My boyfriend and his cohorts mocked me and their words felt a lot like the way I envisioned the inside of that Whiskey Bar.
Today, as I sit in a dimly-lit coffee shop and hear that spark of brilliance coming from the speakers that is Jim Morrison, I am able to stop a moment and remember what it felt like to lie under the quilt and listen to an entire Doors CD. Unlike then, I don’t feel the seductive melancholy pulling me to abandon the outside world and exist solely in Jim’s world. I can recall with some fondness the group of kids that we were, seeking our own rebellion and hoping against hope that it had something to do with following a rock star in to a world of indulgence and camaraderie that never had to end.