I drove my time machine to work this morning. I got into it about halfway through the commute. I had been listening to a list of songs that I have to learn for an upcoming concert. And becoming weary of analyzing similar musical forms, chord progressions, and dynamic shifts. Three songs without any kick pattern deviation or creativity was beginning to make me sad. I was reminded of a song with an interesting kick pattern from an album that was in heavy rotation when I was a teenager. So I decided to recall the album and listen to it. And that’s when I got in my time machine.
And I wasn’t driving behind a log truck with a line of cars behind it. I was driving down I-65 with my Dad on our way to Waveland, MS via Mobile, AL to help rebuild a church. And it was just me and him and the music. And I told him about my children. How they have grown and about the one that he hasn’t met. And I sang along because I knew the lyrics by heart.
I don’t always listen to that album. Going back is a special thing. There are certain songs that take me back to times and places in my life. Maybe it is because I used to listen to music ceremonially. There was a time when I would drive to Wal-Mart to purchase an album on the day it came out. I would wait til I got home in my room and listen to the whole album front to back on my stereo. I’d lay in the floor and read the liner notes. Listening with intention. I didn’t know it then, but I was building a time machine.
It works on sounds too, it doesn’t have to be a song. Certain Hammond organ sounds take me to camp meeting on Pike Road. And it is the day service and I get the feeling that the air conditioning is on and I am grateful to be inside away from the sweltering Alabama June heat. There are guitar sounds that can take me back to sitting in my room with a guitar in my hand practicing as best as I knew how, and I have the same feeling of wanting to be better.
I think a lot of the listening to music that we do today is not intentional. How often do we hear music in the background that no one really wants to hear? I hear it in restaurants. I hear it at the grocery store. I don’t enjoy hearing it this way. I like to listen to music on purpose. Sometimes, I just want it to take me back.
Mostly From Memory 