It's difficult to convey the feelings a particular piece of music evokes without sounding clichéd or overblown. The long-haired music-loving fiends of today (and of yesteryear, come to think) seem to tend to talk about music with a sort of lazy-smile, yeah-man nonchalance, a facade of cool. I have a theory that it's exactly because music is so powerful and we are so invested in it that we don't want to talk about it to people who aren't close friends. It's as though we invest a lot of our personal identity into what we listen to, which is fundamentally funny - "this are the resonance frequencies I enjoy perceiving, this is who I am", but in that vein, everything is, so I wouldn't worry about it overmuch. (Man, I'm just a bunch of phosphorelations, ya know. And then one day, they stop phospohorelating.)
All that to say: I remember looking through my old music - my parents' tapes of Bob Dylan that first introduced me to him, my rusty iTunes, even the records I can't play for lack of gramophone (my grandmother has The Wall, she's pretty much really awesome in every way) and am slowly starting to realize how much it influenced me, and I'd like to examine that a little, informally (no formal proofs here, goddammit). So through the medium of this blog, I'm going to try to write a Weekend Retrospective about a fews songs I remember.
The Moldau - I know this song because the Czech Airlines used to play it whenever we landed in Prague and to me it was as close to home as sound could get. The movement is so powerful, so joyous, so alive, and so unapologetically an ode to the beauty of a river, an area of the world, and existence. This particular version is conducted by Rafael Kubelik and is bitchin', as kids say these days.
This used to be my favourite Bob Dylan song. I don't know why, but I love the imagery, and I love the sort of understated intimation of a notperfect but perfect love from an asshole poet. I used to listen to this song a lot in high school - on long car rides, on long runs, reading books in bed on rainy days, and I still love it.
I was mocked by my more discerning friends for listening to this Vermont jamfool thing, but this was the first Phish song I'd ever heard, and though I never really listened to Phish much after all, I like the laughing irreverent absurdism. It reminds me of West Virginia bluegrass festivals and mistcovered mountains and all that sorta thing.
Ah, yes, teen angst. I remember my Pink Floyd phase - though I suppose my Pink Floyd phase was my entire childhood, as my dad sometimes has good taste, it escalated when I asked for The Wall for Christmas one year (to the joy of everyone except my mother, as my little brother decided to learn to play acoustic guitar by playing tabs from The Wall over and over). This song is so despondent and pathetic and wonderful. Pink Floyd combine their life sucks attitude with ballbreaking talent, so at least my sixteen year old self was blindly angry at the establishment to good music.
Emmaretta! Another long car ride song, riding west at 3am (I rode west at 3am a lot.), playing Deep Purple to stay awake. Deep Purple usually aren't melodic enough for me, but this is sufficiently plaintive and has cool drums.
And there you have it. Not exactly groundbreaking, but never fear.
Cheerio, then.
