I will try to do something with this blog post that will show what music has meant to me over the years and why. I believe that there are songs in everyone's life that represent a moment. I call these songs my life playlist. They are songs with a deeper meaning. These are songs that I can remember exactly what I was doing, everything about the moment that I heard them and even now, years later in most cases they still emote the same feelings today as they did then. So, here is my life playlist. Let me know what songs are on yours.
Oh What A Night - Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons - It was 1976 and my family had just moved to Heidelberg Germany. At the time I had thought of that year as the best of my life to that point and that summer was the best summer ever. From the minute we landed at Ramstine Air Force Base I felt like I was home. I was born in Heidelberg just 9 years and 8 months earlier but so much had happened in those 9 years. That summer, everything seemed to be just right. My dad, stepmother, sister (just months old at the time) and I had gone to the Heidelberg Rod and Gun club and we were having dinner when I heard Oh What A Night by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons on the Jukebox. Maybe it was because everything seemed to be going so well after a several very stressful years or maybe it was just the song itself. That song just sounded GREAT. Every time I hear that song, I think back to the Heidelberg Rod and Gun Club. Oh What a Night.....
Suspicious Minds - Elvis - In August 1971 Los Angeles music was about as diverse as its population was at the time. Elvis was playing on the radio alongside Jefferson Airplane, The Carpenters, Jimi Hendrix and the Monkees. I remember my dad taking off a day from work (he was sick cough cough) so that he and I could spend our first day together just hanging out since he returned from Vietnam. My dad was an Army recruiter in Los Angeles (in 1971 California, he was stressed). We took the day and went to Disneyland and it is a memory that will forever be etched in my head. We had so much fun and to this day I can remember almost everything about it. It was later in the evening when we started home and as we drove the freeway back to our house in Long Beach Elvis Pressley's Suspicious Minds came on the radio and I remember singing it loudly with my dad. He kept singing, I called you a tramp. I loved every second of that four and a half minute song that day and not so much because of the song as much as the memory of that day. For the year that my dad was in Vietnam I worried every day that he would be killed. Now, that day, I had him back and we were singing an Elvis song as loud as we wanted to sing it after spending a day at Disneyland. My dad wanted to spend a day with me enough to play "hooky" from work to do it. Singing off key and my dad egging me on was simply a memory that I will carry all of the days of my life.
Wildfire - Michael Martin Murphy - In June of 1975 my parents decided that it would be great for me to visit my grandparents for 2 months. Here is the logistical problem with that statement; we were in Fort Leonard Wood Missouri, they were in Lock Haven Pennsylvania. The solution, fly Kevin to PA to be with the grandparents right? Nope! We are going to put Kevin on a Continental Trailways bus in St Louis and the grandparents would pick up this almost 10 year old in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Back then it sounded perfectly fine and I will say, it was the coolest trip I have ever taken. I was on an adventure that NONE of my friends had ever even thought of. I had no idea that every inch of that trip was planned and people were calling from stops along the way to let my parents know all was well. I didn't find that out until many years later. It didn't matter. I was on an adventure. I remember sitting behind the bus driver and wide awake in the middle of the night, the radio was on low so that only he and I could hear it. Michael Martin Murphy's Wildfire came on the radio somewhere along the way and from that moment it would be come my favorite song of all time. I still think about that trip all of the time. That bus ride that was only a little more than a day. All of the stops along the way. Watching out the window at the countryside going by. My parents hundreds of miles behind me, my grandparents hundreds of miles ahead of me. I was there by myself at 9 years old. I got to make decisions for myself, what to eat at whatever choke and puke we stopped at, if I wanted to buy something with my money I could just do it without asking for permission. I was on my own. I remember the next morning we stopped at a bus stop somewhere in Indiana I think and I saw a stuffed black horse and I had to have it. I named it Wildfire and it was a part of me for many many years. Like the song, at 9 years old I was trying to figure out life, what was important and what everything meant. I never did figure out that part but to this day, that song makes me think of the summer of 1975. I'm not sure that I have ever had a summer like that since. Maybe I never will but when I hear Wildfire, at least I still have the memories.
Heartlight - Kenny Loggins - This song is just one of those that made me feel good at a time when I was terribly confused by life. In the fall of 1982 I was a junior in high school and we were assigned a research paper. Me being really horrible at writing and research procrastinated until the last possible minute. There was trouble swirling around my parents marriage and I just hated being at home. They fought constantly and so when it came to being home long enough to work on a paper, well I just didn't want to. So the weekend before the paper was due I was working furiously on my paper about Kent State. Wow, what a heavy subject to try to tackle while everything else seemed to be going to hell in a hand basket. I turned on the radio so that I could get a break and just breathe. Kent State made me so very sad because it was all so senseless. My parents fighting all of the time was so senseless. Everything seemed so senseless. After all, either the Russians or the US was going to shoot nukes at each other and we were all going to be wiped from the planet. Well, back to the radio, Kenny Loggins' Heartlight came on and the first line of the song instantly made me feel good, "I like the Love, and I like the peaceful." WOW! At that moment I had no idea that that could exist. Love and peaceful?! All at once. Well, I talked my neighbor into driving over to Penguin Feather records and tapes in Woodbridge so that I could buy that record. To this day when something gets me down I will often pull out that album and play this song. How can you not like a song that starts off with I like the love, I like the peaceful. There is power in that. A healing power, an idea of hope.
Lodi - CCR - This song just makes me happy. Not for the message in the song, nah not that at all. I just remember that as we moved from Long Beach California to Ft Leonard Wood Missouri I was sitting in the front seat of our green1969 Volkswagon station wagon in the middle of the night with my dad driving, my stepmother and brother in the backseat asleep talking to my dad about the silliest stuff and then Lodi came on the radio somewhere in Arizona. I knew my dad liked that song a lot. He was a big CCR fan and I knew that he particularly liked that song. Then he told me about when he was in Vietnam he would stare at the stars in the middle of the night out in the jungle and think about me and my brother and wonder what we were doing. He told me that that song was the last song that he had heard when he left Da Nang on the Armed Forces Network when he was waiting to come home and then there we were, listening to it together. In December of 2004 my dad told me that he heard Lodi on the radio while he was driving to the supermarket and had to pull over to the side of the road and listen to it. He said that he thought about the night that we listened to it on our way east and then he asked me if I remembered that night. I told him I thought about that night all the time. My dad passed away about a month later. Lodi will be our song always.
The Leader of the Band - Dan Fogelberg - This song is the song that epitomizes me and my dad. My dad was, is and will always be my hero. I think of all that he accomplished in his life and there are times that I don't think that I have measured up. Then I remember times that he would say that he just expected me to be who I was meant to be. That would be determined by the steps I took along my journey. My dad was always a tough guy but I know that there were times in his life that he had been hurt and hurt deeply but I think that it was during those times that I saw how courageous and strong he was. My dad was one of the most kind people you would ever meet. He never had a harsh word for anyone and would even defend those that had done wrong by him. I will never forget as a little kid living in Long Beach California he and I walking in downtown Los Angeles when a few hippies started to heckle him. They called him vile names. And then, one poured his drink on my dad. Keep in mind that I was about 6 years old and was standing next to him. The guys obviously were trying to draw him into a fight. He just simply said that he understood why they hated the military. He said that he understood that it represented everything they disliked. It represented men and women doing more for others than themselves. He said that the memories of friends that he lost to snipers bullets and bombs and fire were worth every insult accusation or (while wiping the drink from his face) someone pouring their drink on me. Those memories of his friends were worth 30 seconds of dealing with those guys. I realized at that moment that my dad had something that so many others didn't. He had character, at the time I didn't know what character was but now as an adult, I know it when I see it. My dad's blood runs through me and I think often that my life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man. I am just a living legacy of the leader of the band.
Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkle - May of 1992 was very tough for me. I had just had to go through a medical discharge review from the Navy that I dearly loved and then a week later, my dear Grandmother died. I kind of expected it because I had seen her in April and she wasn't looking very good. After the funeral we all met at my Aunt Cindy's house and then went down to the river and out on her boat for the day. It was late in the day, the radio was on we were all just chatting, remembering Gram and the good times (there were so many) and Simon and Garfunkle came on the radio. I was never a real big fan of theirs. Not that I disliked them, more that I just never really listened to them. A Bridge Over Troubled Waters started playing and we all got very quiet. I think that everyone was just listening to the words to the song but before I knew it we (about 10 of us) were singing along to the song together. I realized that as we were all singing together, we were indeed singing about Gram. She was our bridge over troubled water. For me it was all the calls I would make to her when my parents were having troubles and she would make everything seem ok. It was when I came to visit her and sitting with her and just talking. It was knowing that Gram always seemed to make things ok. If you need a friend, I'm sailing right behind, like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind, like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind." She always did ease my mind. That song will always be Gram's song.
Crocodile Rock - Elton John - Sunday September 22, 1974. I had just had my 9th birthday and my family was going to the St Louis Cardinals versus the Chicago Cubs. I couldn't wait to see that game. My favorite pitcher, Bob Gibson was going to be on the mound, Lou Brock was chasing the single season stolen base record and we had seats that were close enough that I could see everything that ted Simmons was doing behind the plate. I was in heaven. Everything worked as planned, the Cardinals won 6-5. Lou Brock stole 2 bases, Ted Simmons hit a home run and while Bob Gibson didn't get the win (Al Hrabosky did) he pitched a great game and didn't get a loss. On the ride home Elton John's Crocodile Rock came on the radio and I remember bouncing around in the back seat singing that song, bouncing off of my brother and just having a really fun time. My brother who was almost always stoic and serious even was having fun. Our parents were in the front seat just laughing and having a fun time with it. It was one of the great birthdays that I ever had. Anytime I hear that song I can't help but smile and think baseball!
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