music is a circle game

at this point, a normal person would be in bed. but here i sit, typing, listening to music from my past, and it seems to me all a circle game. i just keep coming back to the same soundtrack and it makes me happy and sort of mellow.

the edges of those teenage memories aren't really sharp anymore. sometimes it is like watching a blurry tv with the sound turned down. and then other times i listen to the music and see myself in my bedroom with my guitar trying to play a peter, paul and mary song, getting up and resettling the needle back into the same groove, again. i just never got tired of listening over and over to the same song until i had it down. a lot of time spent in my bedroom sitting on my bed, playing a song, no one hearing me do it. i liked playing, i liked thinking about performing in front of people, you know, the rock star thing. but really, i just wanted to play. i never could learn to read a lick of music, no matter how hard i tried. but i could play by ear and read chords out of a book. but music...nope. and i never did get over the awkwardness and nervousness i felt when performing in front of a crowd. alcohol helped a lot once i got to college, but in high school i didn't have much to soften the anxieties.


joan baez and peter, paul and mary. folk songs. then jim croce records and john denver's greatest hits. and there were others - cat stephens, loggins and messina's first album, sittin' in, and then linda ronstadt's heart like a wheel album. one linked to another one, and on to the 45's of carly simon and anticipation and you're so vain. roberta flack's first time ever i saw your face, hey, that's no way to say goodbye, killing me softly.

the odd thing about this circle game is that 40 years later in my head i still come back to that bedroom, stand around with my guitar, look out that window and down that long driveway and it isn't the same as it was 40 years ago. it wasn't a happy time for me, period. as a matter of fact, it was pretty fucking miserable. but time has done the right thing, i guess. it has blurred the sharp edges of life a bit, softened them. but it has left the good stuff, the music, sharp and crisp and vital. it brought me a lot of pleasure, a lot of confidence, a lot of escape then. and it does the same for me now.