This Is The Story of How We Begin To Remember...
This is another in a series of taking a story I am hoping to tell on stage (tonight, on a theme of "Song") and putting it to page first.
It never comes out of my mouth the way it comes out of my fingers but the general themes do. Enjoy!
"Graceland"
The soundtrack to the summer between the end of junior high and the beginning of high school was, for me, a little bit Crowded House, a scene I will never forget courtesy of Heart, angst from Cinderella, the band, not the movie, and a family road trip from California to Montana in the family sedan with my father in control of the stereo and his taste narrowed to exactly one album.
Someday us children of the 1980's will speak of our Walkmen cassette players the way the Depression era speaks of food and job scarcity, because once upon a time music in our headphones on a long car trip was, at best, supplied by dozens of songs from tapes you could fit in a carrying case. And when the batteries ran out around Nevada the roads of Idaho and Wyoming my ears became the slave to my father playing Paul Simon's Graceland again. And again. And again.
Graceland was the first and only album I can ever remember seeing my father buy when I was a kid. And I know this because it was me, his youngest of 3, that he asked to go with him to Tower Records to find it after he saw 60 Minutes do a feature on how Simon went to Africa and drew inspiration for it. He would, of course, win Grammy Awards and play on that continent and the album itself, as anyone will tell you, was and is pretty amazing. And that was the bitch of it, not just for me but for my brother and my sister. My brother loved Run DMC, my sister Judas Priest, and I was phasing out of Duran Duran into Bon Jovi, Cinderella, and Motley Crue. But we all secretly liked Graceland. But admitting that out loud to our father was liking admitting he was right about something, and when you're 13, 16, and 18 you want nothing to do with that.
By the time we got to Yellowstone I had heard Graceland start to finish at least 10 times over the course of 3 days. By default I knew every word to every song. When we finally got to our destination and the family reunion taking place there I was so ready to hear ANYTHING else. And if hadn't been for my cousin and 2 girls we met at the resort all I would have musically from that trip would be Paul Simon. But thanks to Jennifer, who would be first girl I'd ever made out with, my 45 single for the summer got a b-side of Anne and Nancy Wilson, better known as Heart. Jennifer played their cassette Bad Animals on her boom box and we kissed over and over while listening to it and, yes, I felt Bad and, yes, I felt like an Animal, and when Jennifer quietly sang along in a whisper "How do I get you alone?" my literal mind thought, "Well, getting your sister and my cousin off of the bed next to us and out of this room might be a good start..."
So for a few days after that Heart's "Alone" became the musical imprint of that journey. It was the song I was going to take with me, mostly because my young enamored heart couldn't take Jennifer with me.
But then the Walkman batteries died again and my father turned up Graceland again. And again. And he would sing along out loud in a horrible voice and even though I was so sick of hearing the 11 songs on that album repeatedly I was singling internally. And I've been singing it for 27 years and counting since.
Because for met that album is my father and the title song from it, "Graceland", is one of a father and son journey and the destination where the narrator hopes we all will be received.
I was 13 when I heard it first and even though there would be other songs and albums and other girls and slow dances, power ballads, and live shows with friend that would become indelible in my heart I feel like "Graceland" chased me all around my upbringing. Because when I was growing up I could talk to my mother about anything. But my father was a different story. And yet he liked to talk about that album when I was 13. And 14. And at 15 I think he even tried to make his own father-son journey by taking me to Disneyland, just the two of us, totally out o the blue. It wasn't the home of Elvis, not even close, but it's where he had frequent flier miles and it was the only solo vacation I ever took with either of my parents.
This man... this workaholic suburban father of 3 never had a use for music or art. And it always fascinated me how Paul Simon -- this short little guy from New York and an icon of the 60's, could travel to Africa and create something that somehow spoke to my Dad... this Reagan era Republican who stopped going to movies after John Wayne died and is the only person I know of to have grown up in Humboldt County and never smoke pot. But it did. I've always believed that something in those songs, with themes on love and regret and children and wandering a bit lost through all of it, made sense to him.
It was a piece to a larger puzzle because as a kid I didn't need any convincing about the power of song or songs. I already had that in me from all that came before Graceland and all that would come after. But I still find myself reaching for that album in the way some might reach for a Bible or a poem. I've bought that album twice since then. First, when cassettes went the way of the dinosaur and I bought it on CD for my father as an upgrade. And then when I eventually bought it for myself. And I've turned to it when I just want to hear but then other times I just need it. Like when I listened to on my solo road trip down to Medford to be with my mother during his heart surgery. When I play it for my sons and tell them how much grandpa loves it and how, once upon a time, this album with 11 songs gave a teenage kid and his father, who he always felt never understood him very much, something they could talk about when they might not have had anything else.
J
It never comes out of my mouth the way it comes out of my fingers but the general themes do. Enjoy!
"Graceland"
The soundtrack to the summer between the end of junior high and the beginning of high school was, for me, a little bit Crowded House, a scene I will never forget courtesy of Heart, angst from Cinderella, the band, not the movie, and a family road trip from California to Montana in the family sedan with my father in control of the stereo and his taste narrowed to exactly one album.
Someday us children of the 1980's will speak of our Walkmen cassette players the way the Depression era speaks of food and job scarcity, because once upon a time music in our headphones on a long car trip was, at best, supplied by dozens of songs from tapes you could fit in a carrying case. And when the batteries ran out around Nevada the roads of Idaho and Wyoming my ears became the slave to my father playing Paul Simon's Graceland again. And again. And again.
Graceland was the first and only album I can ever remember seeing my father buy when I was a kid. And I know this because it was me, his youngest of 3, that he asked to go with him to Tower Records to find it after he saw 60 Minutes do a feature on how Simon went to Africa and drew inspiration for it. He would, of course, win Grammy Awards and play on that continent and the album itself, as anyone will tell you, was and is pretty amazing. And that was the bitch of it, not just for me but for my brother and my sister. My brother loved Run DMC, my sister Judas Priest, and I was phasing out of Duran Duran into Bon Jovi, Cinderella, and Motley Crue. But we all secretly liked Graceland. But admitting that out loud to our father was liking admitting he was right about something, and when you're 13, 16, and 18 you want nothing to do with that.
By the time we got to Yellowstone I had heard Graceland start to finish at least 10 times over the course of 3 days. By default I knew every word to every song. When we finally got to our destination and the family reunion taking place there I was so ready to hear ANYTHING else. And if hadn't been for my cousin and 2 girls we met at the resort all I would have musically from that trip would be Paul Simon. But thanks to Jennifer, who would be first girl I'd ever made out with, my 45 single for the summer got a b-side of Anne and Nancy Wilson, better known as Heart. Jennifer played their cassette Bad Animals on her boom box and we kissed over and over while listening to it and, yes, I felt Bad and, yes, I felt like an Animal, and when Jennifer quietly sang along in a whisper "How do I get you alone?" my literal mind thought, "Well, getting your sister and my cousin off of the bed next to us and out of this room might be a good start..."
So for a few days after that Heart's "Alone" became the musical imprint of that journey. It was the song I was going to take with me, mostly because my young enamored heart couldn't take Jennifer with me.
But then the Walkman batteries died again and my father turned up Graceland again. And again. And he would sing along out loud in a horrible voice and even though I was so sick of hearing the 11 songs on that album repeatedly I was singling internally. And I've been singing it for 27 years and counting since.
Because for met that album is my father and the title song from it, "Graceland", is one of a father and son journey and the destination where the narrator hopes we all will be received.
I was 13 when I heard it first and even though there would be other songs and albums and other girls and slow dances, power ballads, and live shows with friend that would become indelible in my heart I feel like "Graceland" chased me all around my upbringing. Because when I was growing up I could talk to my mother about anything. But my father was a different story. And yet he liked to talk about that album when I was 13. And 14. And at 15 I think he even tried to make his own father-son journey by taking me to Disneyland, just the two of us, totally out o the blue. It wasn't the home of Elvis, not even close, but it's where he had frequent flier miles and it was the only solo vacation I ever took with either of my parents.
This man... this workaholic suburban father of 3 never had a use for music or art. And it always fascinated me how Paul Simon -- this short little guy from New York and an icon of the 60's, could travel to Africa and create something that somehow spoke to my Dad... this Reagan era Republican who stopped going to movies after John Wayne died and is the only person I know of to have grown up in Humboldt County and never smoke pot. But it did. I've always believed that something in those songs, with themes on love and regret and children and wandering a bit lost through all of it, made sense to him.
It was a piece to a larger puzzle because as a kid I didn't need any convincing about the power of song or songs. I already had that in me from all that came before Graceland and all that would come after. But I still find myself reaching for that album in the way some might reach for a Bible or a poem. I've bought that album twice since then. First, when cassettes went the way of the dinosaur and I bought it on CD for my father as an upgrade. And then when I eventually bought it for myself. And I've turned to it when I just want to hear but then other times I just need it. Like when I listened to on my solo road trip down to Medford to be with my mother during his heart surgery. When I play it for my sons and tell them how much grandpa loves it and how, once upon a time, this album with 11 songs gave a teenage kid and his father, who he always felt never understood him very much, something they could talk about when they might not have had anything else.
J