Like most people I know, a chronology of songs and albums are time/date stamped on my brain. Every forkful of life -- good, bad & indifferent -- is generously drizzled with a unique musical condiment.
Consider Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released 40 years ago today in the States, the musical mother lode.
Sgt Pepper was the first album (yes, vinyl album) to draw me inside, give me shelter, fill me with questions, provide escape. Running my fingers over the sleeve, I'd listen to it 2 and 3 times a sitting ... who were these people on the cover? Should I know them all? How are the exotic sounds of 'Within You Without You' made? Why is Paul facing backwards on the back cover? What's plasticine? Why does Ringo look like a garishly dressed chimp? It was interactive media long before the barbarism of today's CD-Roms and X-Boxes. It was a full-blown show begging to bound across my mind at the drop of a needle.
Specifically, it was a focal point of Friday nights in 1977: Mom would pick Kevin and I up in her 280Z and we'd listen to loud, Moody Blues astro-prog-rock for the ride to Little Falls ("Lovely to see you again, my friend ..."). Spaghetti and meat sauce would be prepared and eaten while mom and her second-husband-to-be Bob drank Gallo wine and made goo-goo eyes at each other while Kevin and I stared at our plates in revulsion. After dinner I'd pull Sgt Pepper from the several dozen albums beneath the stereo, lay it gently on the turntable, don giant '70s headphones, sit cross-legged on the condo's wall-to-wall carpeting, lay the album sleeve in my lap, and get lost in every song.
To this day I won't listen to the original Sgt Pepper from beginning to end. Childish, yes, but I can't dilute the meaning of this once special ritual. Cannot. Anthology outtakes satisfy my adult curiousity to know everything about the album's creation, and books like Mark Lewisohn's day-by-day breakdown of the Beatles in the studio from 1962-1970 remains an all-time favorite reads. Still, the 11-year-old in me remains protective of a record that changed my life for the better while other forces were trying to f*ck it up but good.
"... and of course Henry the Horse dances the waltz!"
2 comments:
Then, it progressed to Pink Floyd, then Adam and the Ants, then Bruce, then EC, then REM, etc, etc, and so it goes. And, those Moody Blues that you used to tell me about-
I almost forgot about the Lewisohn book, I still have it out in the bookshelf, rarely look at it. I wonder if that is still the definative source of recording for them, since it is almost 20 years old itself now.
6/4/84- Born in the USA released- I know where you were!
My memory is pretty good. Just re-read your post-you did mention the Moody Blues-see I listened to all those stories over the years. In fact 1977, is the year I met ye!
Post a Comment