Music & me
Again, this doesn't really fit any of the categories, so I'll call it Rambling. LOL I've always enjoyed many forms of music, some that others would even dispute being classified as music, lol. When I was younger than 7 years old, more like 4 - 5 I would guess, my parents gave me a 78 RPM record player that wound with a crank and the "speaker" was a part of the needle (no electricity of any form needed). I had a few records although I don't remember most of the songs on them. I believe one was "Pop Goes The Weasel". The one I do remember was "Davy Crockett" ("king of the wild frontier..."). It told Davy Crockett's story which may have been why I developed a preference for ballads and other songs that actually said something. Or maybe I was born that way and that's why it is the only one from that time I remember. Here's a YouTube of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nOF4cq6qNc&feature=related During my teens and 20's I liked the surf & drag racing music of the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, and the rest. The Beatles, Dave Clark Five, and the rest of the British Invasion were ok, but not high on my personal charts. However, my favorites were not the run of the mill rock and roll groups. I leaned more toward folk, psychedelic, and protest. Simon and Garfunkel, Dylan, Baez, Seeger, Jefferson Airplane, and Steppenwolf were among my favorites. I must be honest, though. I could rarely tell you a song title or artist. I could recognize and sing along with a song, but I could seldom tell you the song's name and even less often who performed it. I missed most of the '80s music. That was a time of listening to Christian radio stations and oldies (back to surf & racing). In the '90s and early 2000s I drifted around among classical, baroque, and big band. All in all, I had always enjoyed music, but it was more of a background thing. It was never very important to me and I would often go for weeks without a song. Then in 2005 I quit smoking and everything changed. I don't know if my awakening triggered my quit or my quit triggered my awakening, but about 3 months after qutting smoking, music became a very important aspect of my life. More than just enjoying it, it actually began to speak to me (hang in there, I really did not go nuts). One thing that is very important in addiction recovery is to reward yourself often. I made CDs my weekly reward for not smoking. At first I stuck with what I'd always liked and got CDs of Bach, Beethoven, Handel, etc., as well as chamber music, 60's music, 70's music, etc. But I quickly became bored with the usual and started exploring beyond what I'd typically listened to. Barnes & Noble so totally rocks by letting you hear snippets of some songs on a CD so I could quickly and freely explore other genres. I discovered Irish/Gaelic/Celtic music, African, Native American, New Age, meditation, relaxation, as well as more rock such as Bruce Springsteen and more John Cougar Mellencamp than I ever heard on the radio. It was the music of the latter two that I noticed songs paralleling where I was at in my life at particular moments. Some gave advice, some gave warnings, and some simply offered validation and assurance. I'm going to discuss a few of the biggest ones and how they were woven into my life at the time they came to me over a few journal posts. I hope they prove interesting and nobody decides I'm a total looney.
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