" . . .
Hang ups, let downs
Bad breaks, set backs
Natural fact is
I can't pay my taxes
Oh, make me wanna holler
And throw up both my hands
Yea, it makes me wanna holler
And throw up both my hands . . ." **
My life really is a compilation of Motown songs. I can not delineate just how much is subliminal influence and how much is pure coincidence but I have been observing the signature impact on my life for some time.
Music is the underpinning to the core of my being. In fact, my epitaph (should they find my body or not merely dump me in a reinforced, plastic lawn bag) will likely be an old Elton John/ Bernie Taupin piece, “This Song Has No Title (Just Words and a Tune).”
Many people claim such an intimate link between music and their souls and some I would actually believe and acknowledge as authentic. Mine is certified. I grew up before digital music and also when people actually played instruments and wrote original material and did not merely sample someone else’s creativity. There was this thing known as A-N-A-L-O-G. That is significant on so many levels and I will give it its proper rant another time. Sufficient for this diatribe is that analog is a continuous passage of time. Digitized anything is a quantization which is a rate of bits and pieces with gaps and missing stuff. There is so much irony in how much stuff those born in the “digital age” miss and are not even cognizant.
Now, I am by no means a techno-phobe as I was personally involved in designing and introducing such products as . . . oh, the desktop PC and data over voice telephony that made the Internet far more real than anything in Al Gore’s imagined contributions. These are digital products. Some valid music has been and is being made with digital equipment and the sonic possibilities are remarkable. It’s just too bad no one has stepped up to demonstrate this AND, for the purposes of my argument, digital recording techniques lose too much in the translation from the analog world in which we live. This is not a lone, crazy man’s opinion. Recording studios are spending large chunks of money to find, restore, and adapt analog amplifiers and effects processors into their LED and LCD clustered studios to breathe life into their products.
Anyway, more to the point of this post is that I am so tuned into the music that usually within a note or two I know what the song is by the ambiance and atmosphere captured on the recording. I feel and hear the breath of acoustic instrumentation. I sense the dynamic coloring of the microphones used and to what recording media it was transferred. I just do. I am just a person extremely attuned to such things in my environment. I do this without deliberate effort.
I have the same awareness when I walk past a woman, by the way. From as far away as five feet I detect the pheromones being radiated from the back of her neck and know where she is in her ovulatory cycle. No cologne or anything else masks this from me. I just take note of it as casually as registering the color of her car if she were driving past. I have even told women that they are pregnant before they or their test stick knew it. This has been tested on several occasions by skeptical, female friends and colleagues. I have never taken advantage of this knowledge. If women have a sixth sense then I claim a sixth “scent.” Oh, to dissuade any women from being horrified about “smelling” (I know this is a huge area of fanatical concern for women to freak out about) Don’t worry. This specific scent is not offensive regardless of what day it is.
Relax.
As long as you are creeped out or even perversely intrigued I will share a few other bits of candor with you. I shave dry and pull off bandages meticulously and slowly. I also sleep with my eyes open and in such a shallow state of unconsciousness that I carry on conversations (which I do not recall when awake) in which I have been known to sit up and ask and answer questions. Now you know so much about me. Pleased to meet you. And, you are . . . r-u-n-n-i-n-g . . . away . . . hmm. Fine.
Somehow I will steer this back to the music.
All of this sensory perception is probably related to my Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity and a cherry on top. The things that regulate “normal” people’s thought processes do not work in my case. It creates all sorts of interesting possibilities for really poor human interaction. But it also makes me sensitized to things that the body usually has mechanisms for dulling the reception. That’s right – I’m calling YOU dull. For example, I can feel my hair grow. This is one of the recognized oddities associated with ADD. But as far as music is concerned these same failed mechanisms allow me to really sense music so deeply. I really also believe I am very sympathetic to the souls of the musicians and artists. It is just second nature for me to have a song lyric at my finger tips that is appropriate for whatever situation I encounter. There are often times where I will be examining my mood or trying to determine how something is affecting me and I will suddenly become aware of the soundtrack playing in the background of my thoughts. Invariably, my subconscious interjects what my conscious mind has yet to fully realize.
So since I am so trusting of music and the meaning it has for me I am taking a look at how dangerous that just may be. This has nothing to do with backward masking and satanic messages. There is, however, a very subtle power in the things expressed in music. Am I allowing too much influence? Many times I have heavy philosophical arguments with the stereo because of my strong reaction to either the real or implied intent of the lyrics. It is very easy to allow an idea that would otherwise meet critical evaluation “slip past the guards” because it’s packaged in a catchy tune. Now since my formative years occurred in the era just before AM radio ceased to be relevant I was basically weaned on the Beatles and Motown. Therefore my tutors in how to be a man and to face the world into which I found myself growing up presented my instruction in three minute bursts. The impact of all of my teachers was pretty much history by 1974. That means that between the ages of two (when I asked for and received my first Beatles album, in 1964) and my twelfth birthday I was immersed in the sage counsel of John, George, Paul and Ringo; Sam Cooke; Jackie Wilson; Smokey Robinson; Aretha Franklin; the Supremes; The Temptations; The Spinners; Gladys Knight and the Pips; Otis Redding; and, Marvin Gaye. There were other influences but these certainly predominate.
Consequently, I have filtered my understanding of life and love through the words and fisheye lens of the music I probably sing in my sleep. I know I sing it in the shower as I prepare to face the world each day. You know, if I examine this too closely I may well be horrified. Music is so personal and it isn’t hard to imagine that I have personified what I’ve listened to all of these years.
I became acutely aware of this is in just the previous several months. Just turning on the radio was too painful. Even before my marriage crashed and burned I had become depressed and stopped doing anything creative. I stopped writing altogether. I wouldn’t even pick up a guitar or keyboard. I just . . . couldn’t. At the time I could not account for this. After the divorce I sort of allowed for such behavior but had no insight. Music is so intimate but it isn’t exclusive – it’s inclusive. A song puts it all out there. Whatever the writer or performer is experiencing gets broadcast with the knowledge that they are making themself naked (meaning: exposed, vulnerable) to the world. It’s a desperate pleading. It’s a cry of anguish and for help and for understanding and recognition all rolled together. I realized why I couldn’t listen to the music. Music is to be shared and I have no one to share it. I would be begging to be heard by someone deliberately not listening. I couldn’t take the rejection. I couldn’t share my life with anyone.
I also recognized that I shifted from listening to viewing. I turned down the sound and started watching movies. Movies allow you to eavesdrop into another person’s world without needing to make a personal investment. You can live vicariously without living at all. I think it’s why pornography can suck the soul right out of you. You can imagine whatever selfish pleasure you need to without regard for anyone at all. You can reward yourself when no one else will. Then you can pretend you have some affirmation and solace. I now observe other people – synthetic people – actors – pretending to have romances and find love and live. Music allows no such voyeurism. You have to participate in music.
It is unfortunate that the music that shaped my thinking mostly involves pleas for forgiveness, break-ups and begging for second chances. But, that also happens to be where I find myself.
I ain’t too proud to beg, sweet Darlin’ . . . ***
** Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)
*** The Temptations – Ain’t Too Proud to Beg
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