Tag: Story

Music in my Life

By Tom Peters

Has anyone else been subjected to a 50s radio playing “Mr. Sandman” a little to often? However, listening to tunes from that hopeful era, once in a while, smells like Mennen After Shave and fried bologna.

Looking back on the 60s, I now think the Stone’s “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” ushered in multitude of ADD wanderers such as yours truly.

While still choking down leftover turkey and stuffing, I’m compelled to give thanks to the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” for contributing to my sanity in 1969 worn torn Vietnam. And as Woodstock music closed the door on the 60’s, Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” opened the door to the 1970s.

Dylan ran through my blood for many years and shaped my mind from the long “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” to the all too short “One Too Many Mornings”. But as speakers got bigger and louder, Dylan picked up an electric guitar and turned my attention to Steely Dan, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath, Procol Harem, Jimi Hendricks, yes, a band called Yes and a boss called Bruce. Too many other artists of this time to name them all but I’m proud of the amazing music from the Motown movement, my hometown. Yet it was the Beach Boys and a group called ‘America’ that turned my head west.

OK, before someone cries out “where’s the women artists”…Joni Mitchell, Holly Cole, Peggy Lee, K D Lang, Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Knall, Nora Jones, and Peter, Paul, and MARY! Jeez, you’re a tough crowd!

My wife rejects my overgeneralized, mean-spirited occasional comment that there was no music in the 80s and 90s worth listening to since she’s younger and was hitting her music prime in the 1980s. I turned my attention to jazz during this period to the likes of Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday and many others. On the Jazz Fusion front, Pat Metheny became a favorite. Metheny’s “Last Train Home” puts me on that train. “Sketches of Spain” by Miles lands me in a Spanish village, and Coltrane’s “Love Supreme” feels like JoAn’s shoulder.

I’ll finish with the three songs that lyrically touch me to my core: Randy Newman’s “In Germany Before the War”, with the chorus line ‘I’m looking at the river, but I’m thinking of the sea’. From the shores of the Detroit River to the Pacific Ocean, there go I. Steely Dan’s “Deacon Blues” with its aspirational line ‘I play just what I feel’ feeds my quest for trying things for the fun of it. And lastly, from Tom Waits’ song “Tango Till They’re Sore”, the line ‘Let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair.’ Helps me not take myself too seriously and YES we’re all going to die…but let’s be sure to live until we die.