Thursday, July 3, 2008 6:10 PM CDT
COULMN: There's not much in this exasperating world that music can't make better
By PENNY WEAVER, Night news editor
pweaver@jg-tc.com
Gas prices are so high that people cry if they spill just a drop of the stuff, food costs are more bloated than your uncle after he puts too many onions on his quarter-pound burger, and wages are more stagnant than a Thigh Master in a nursing home.
Oh my! What’s a person to do?
When it gets to be too much, I just crank up some tunes and sing along.
It’s amazing what music can do, isn’t it? Once you associate a song with something, it doesn’t matter how many years go by — hear that song again, and it takes you back.
I can’t ever remember not loving music. When I was a kid, my dad and some of his friends would gather to play music and we little girls would listen and dance until it was bedtime.
When we got a little older, we made “music” of our own. Not being able to afford a real drum set — as if my parents were dense enough to buy me one, anyway — I contrived one of my own.
Our elderly neighbors ate plenty of Quaker Oats, which came in the tall round cardboard containers. I collected a few, cut them off at strategic heights, taped them to a board, and voila! I had my own drum set.
Well, the sound left much to be desired. But with a couple of sticks, it still was good enough to give my poor rhythm skills a place to remain unhoned.
I can remember lying on the floor on hot summer days, right in front of the stereo, listening to records for hours. My dad’s collection included the Beatles, Elvis and plenty of country. I soon had my own Beach Boys, Village People — hey, what did I know? — and various country 33s. I guess they call it vinyl these days.
My sisters and I would put on “shows” for my parents and our neighbors, lip syncing to anything from Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” to “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” by BJ Thomas. I’m sure our shenanigans were at least somewhat amusing, but it’s the music that helped make it so much fun.
Music is a great outlet in so many ways. Whether you are a listener or a player — of music, I mean: stay focused, now — there’s just something about a great song.
When I was in junior high or so, I started writing songs. I wanted, of course, to put them to music, so I started learning to play guitar. Up to that point, I’d always loved country music almost exclusively, so I bugged Dad to help me learn chords and play along with the guys.
It took a lot of work, since it’s not something that comes naturally to me, but I learned to play well enough to join the jam sessions and put together my little songs. None of them are anything special, but it’s amazing how they last.
I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, but lately I’ve been playing some of these songs — written when I was 18, 19, 20 — and even though they’re mediocre at best, I find I still feel much the same way as I was expressing in those tunes.
Partly, I’m horrified I may not have learned much thus far in life, compared to then, and partly I’m comforted to not have changed too much.
Of course, my audience now is only me. I used to play at nursing homes once in a while, and that’s a perfect audience for me: Most are unable to run away when I start singing, and the rest likely can’t hear me anyway, so they probably think I sound pretty good.
One moment that reminded me of the power of music was in the nursing home, years ago, when I learned the song “Tennessee Waltz” for one of our residents, Grace, at her request. The first time I played it for her, I almost stopped mid-song because the tears just rolled down her cheeks. But she loved it.
I’m not sure where that song took her to, but it brought up memories that, though bittersweet, she clearly treasured in her old age.
Struggling to play guitar and sound at least a little better than Tiny Tim (oh, just Google it, you youngsters out there), I think, gives me a better appreciation of good music and those who can write it, play it and sing it.
I bet everyone has at least one, and probably several, songs that practically transport them to another time and place when they hear them. Some friends and I plan to go see REO Speedwagon this month, and when I looked them up to refresh my memory on what top songs they’ve had, I was struck by the irony.
One of their top hits, “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” will take me right back to my high school days — just two days before my 20th high school reunion. Yikes.
Other times, when I associate a song with an event or a particular time, it’s amusing.
I covered a murder trial in 1992 or 1993 in Mount Vernon, while working at the Effingham Daily News. After a day of testimony about blood and other fluids, including seminal fluids found or not found on the victim’s clothing, I got in my baby blue Chevy Beretta and headed home.
The first song I heard was “Seminole Wind,” by John Anderson. I can never hear that song again and think of it in the same way as before that day of trial testimony.
Anderson’s “Swingin’” from the 1980s, and his “Black Sheep,” are songs that remind me of riding with my dad in his truck. I remember riding with him one day when we heard a song, “Diggin’ Up Bones,” by some newer guy named Randy Travis, and Dad and I both agreed what we liked about him most was he was more traditional country.
Unlike my “younger days,” when I stuck to listening to country music almost exclusively, and snottily said that to sing rock’n’roll all you had to do was be able to holler, I like all kinds of genres now. I always wonder what people are listening to on their iPods at the Y, for example.
When I’m working out, you’re just as likely to find me listening to Ray Stevens’ “Freddy Feelgood and His Funky Little Five-Piece Band” as to George Strait’s “I Saw God Today,” or Melissa Etheridge’s “Heal Me,” or “The Entertainer” with Floyd Cramer at the ivories, or Smash Mouth belting out “Walkin’ on the Sun.”
Check my truck, and you’ll find the Indigo Girls, the Dixie Chicks, Daniel O’Donnell, 50 Years of Bluegrass Hits, Nanci Griffith and Kristen Hall as staples. You know what they say: Variety is the spice of life.
So don’t let all this real-world, day-to-day struggle stuff get to you. Pull out your favorite tunes and create yourself a little getaway. The tax man can’t get you in “Maragaritaville,” and if “God Must Be a Cowboy,” no one pays for gasoline for their horses.
Find your own “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” and just “Let It Be.”
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Billie Brant wrote on Jul 3, 2008 7:00 AM:
Being a musician myself , the love of it whether performing or just listening to it is almost as life sustaining to me as the air I breathe. Music has seen me through a lot of tough times as well as providing me with pure pleasure in good ones. I can't remember music not being a huge part of my life. It's always been there.
I came from a musical family also Penny.I don't think you and I are related even though my maiden name was Weaver, unless you came from Dogtown, Diona to the folks who weren't raised around here. LOL!
Like you I have a wide range of musicial styles I enjoy from classical to bluegrass and much in-between. Gotta say I don't care for Rap, Punk, Alternitive Rock and head banging Metal though, but to each his own.
I'm pretty much retired from the music business, but my good friends that still "play out" still let the old girl sit in and sing with them. My piano and guitar still get a work out(mostly at home these days) although the fingers aren't as spry as they used to be. LOL! Still, I find playing and singing if only for myself a pleasurable part of my life.
Enjoy some great local musicians at Morton park this evening folks, The Sawyer Brothers Band, then stick around for Bucky Covington's show.
Support LIVE music!! "