What elements create and enrich the mix tape of life - exemplify the good, the bad, the neutral? How strongly are our lives tied to a sonic format? I'm truly amazed how a few bars or a catchy chorus associatively tethers me to my memories.
Here I'd like to delve deeper into the notes that bind my life; to find resurgences of details, lost thoughts. This is a multiple-portion series - essentially the liner notes to the soundtrack of my life so far. Perhaps my journey might jostle some relevant slash mirrored experiences from your own life. Please enjoy with me (not necessarily in chronological order):
SIDE A - Miasma oblongata
AC/DC - Back in Black
This song is for anyone who ever had a close childhood friend; one that you wanted to keep to yourself. They may not have been your best friend. I had a best friend, but (and I don't know if this happens with girls as well as guys...) this friend was the friend I chose to spend most of my time with - and vice versa. We seemed to recognize the universe's entropic progression better than any of our other cohorts. He was also the friend that, in a minute fashion, planted the seeds of 'teenage rebellion' in my spongy young brain.
The song 'Back in Black' - and subsequent album - were in all reality, the first music I heard beyond my parent's music and the kid-friendly music my friend parent's allowed played. A touch less acceptable (I'm imagining my parent's dismayed gaze as 'You Shook Me All Night Long' rocked its roguish tendrils into my seven year old cranium. Of course at that point, sexual elements were well removed from my grasp.) But it was a rash departure from safe kiddie fare like Raffi or the oldies and classical my parents tended to cherish.
In a fashion, it was an early sampling of the bittersweet departure from childhood. These secrets were shared primarily between my friend and I, even though neither of us grasped entirely what the gist of those secrets were. We just sat on my kitchen floor with my minute boom box playing a tape that plugged us into new, forthcoming realities.
