Been a long time.. been a long time.. been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time

 

When I was 12 I discovered Led Zeppelin, ironically not by hearing them but by reading “Stairway to Heaven” as part of the submissions we had to give in as homework for an English assignment.  Our teacher, a fabulous woman named Mrs. Darden, was trying to teach us about poetry and poems.  We were pre-pubescent, already well on our way to believing there was nothing in school worth knowing and poetry and poems .. outside of the musings some of us made in the hidden corners of our notebooks (usually odes to the brown eyes of a boy we liked, or maybe it was blue or green eyes that we sought and which looked right over us) poems were yet another BOOORRING topic we were about to learn and get tested on.  

However, she took it to another place. She often did.  She was one of the most amazing and inspiring teachers I ever had, she was not our friend but she was a mentor and a role model.  She told us to bring in the lyrics to one song we liked.  Before Google, when we sang the wrong lyrics too often, it was only if we had the album and the liner notes with lyrics that would ensure we had the right ones penned for our assignment. There were two kinds of music listeners, those who liked rock and those who liked disco and the up and coming rap.  I liked it all, and in the confines of my home, I liked oldies too.  I was taking classical piano lessons and I had embraced Beethoven and Mozart but if you were to torture me I would not have admitted it.  So I brought in the lyrics to “How Deep is Your Love”, somehow Saturday Night Fever was a favorite to both groups.  She took our songs, written by many of the girls with the hearts above the “I’s” and in less legible boys writing and photocopied them.  The purple ink and the smell is a memory that only those of a certain age will understand.   We had to read them, talk about them.  

So I discovered “Stairway to Heaven” and it was poetry .. it was magical and I had no idea what it sounded like, it just did something for me.  I liked a lot of the songs but the three that stand out to this day, are “Rapper’s Delight” by Sugarhill Gang (still can do it to this day - ok some of it), “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen and “Stairway to Heaven”.  

I couldn’t just pull up any of them on a device to listen to any of them, they were read, they were lyrics and they came alive in my head before my ears.  I couldn’t wait for the day to end and walk home, a few blocks away from the school, and stop at the record store that was on my way. Small store, next to Woolworth’s (who had the best chocolate shakes).  They would let you listen to songs, these giant headphones that were never cleaned between patrons (I thought in light of the recent virus and even before that would tell you how little “safety” those times heeded) on your ears.  I remember the guys who worked there, not their names, but both had this shoulder length hair, one straight and flipped back, the other a frizzy mop.  They knew me, 45s were $1-$3 dollars, my father and I were regulars.  I lived a block away after all.  I went in, the papers clutched in my hand and asked them if I could listen to the songs.  I had heard “Another One Bites the Dust” but I am pretty sure I had not really known the lyrics until I read them on that piece of paper that was now slightly crimped from being held so tightly.  The other two were a mystery as far as what they would sound like. 

I put on the headphones and listened to “Stairway to Heaven”.. WOW... I was blown away.  I had to have the album, I did not have any money on me, I was not friends enough with the girl who had brought in the lyrics to ask to borrow it.  I listened to “Rapper’s Delight” next, so different, so good.  I had to have it, I was friendly enough with the guy who brought those in to ask him to borrow his album.  I walked out totally needing Led Zeppelin in my life.  It was my baptism into a whole new type of music, I eventually saw what Robert Plant looked like and fell in love with him and his voice.  It was the beginning of the end of more tame music.  I still liked the oldies, Rick Springfield and the like would still be there, I needed music to dance to and there was rock.  Rock and rebellion were in my ears.  

I actually started to listen to poems and poetry because of that moment in time, that teacher.  Music has always been there for me, I do not remember a time ever in my life where it was not on in our house but this was my music.  Needless to say my parents didn’t like it, my father and I drifted apart around that time.  I was growing up, no longer in awe of his love of music and instead now branching out to my own that he often disparaged.  I was now into boys that listened to this music, they were not the types of boys one would bring home to, oh yeah the fact that I wasn’t allowed to date yet of course loomed large in that decision as well.  My father wanted me to be who he wanted me to be .. Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, SugarHill Gang were my world and he had no interest in it.  Then came dance music, dances and still for listening in my room, it was rock.  It would get alternative, get harder with introduction to punk and keep evolving. Yet to this day, if Zeppelin comes on, the dial stops and I need to hear it.  

This past year has been hard for most of us.  It has forced me to contemplate a lot of things, who I am, where I am in my life, who I want in it and what else I want to accomplish.  To go forward sometimes you need to look back and music has been there all the time during 2020.  It was there on drives to the supermarket, me going as if I was in a bad zombie movie and promising to come back with supplies to my family, music on and tears flowed.  I was strong and optimistic at home, I was a mess in my car.  I worried, I sang, I put on songs that put my feelings into music.  I wondered about people and I listened to everything, one day I heard “Stairway to Heaven” on my drive to get my weekly shopping.  It made me smile, took me to a time before the crack, AIDS epidemics, when 9/11 was just a date, when the world was struggling in different ways but I was too young to get it.  I closed my eyes and listened and smiled, for the length of the song (and it is not pretty long) I was not in a car, holding a mask, waiting to get on line and hoping to find toilet paper.  I was in a small, crowded, no way to socially distance record store, with headphones on that had touched more heads than I could ever know, eyes closed and transported then too.  

I have not blogged for a long time .. and at first I thought I would write about 2020, or the pandemic or my kids.  No political anger, social justice commentary or anything flowed.  They were on my mind but it was the moment, the music that I wanted to share.  

Thank you for reading... stay safe and come back there will be more.