Thursday, August 26, 2010

I hear music...sweet, sweet music

Today's Flashback Friday post is all about music so I couldn't pass that one up. Even though I have had overnight guests here who needed breakfast and we have a child to pick up at the Newark airport in Friday traffic I am still going to play along. Daughter1 is coming home for a long weekend so she can attend the wedding of a childhood friend and we can't wait to have her home with us for a few days. She hasn't spent much time in this house and it always makes me smile to see her sleeping snug in her own bed.

Okay, I'm supposed to be talking about music which happens to be one of my favorite things in the world. I love music. Lots of different types of music. However, I myself am not musically inclined. As a young girl I always wanted to play the piano but we didn't have one growing up so that didn't happen. I did enjoy singing in our church youth choir all thru my high school years but let's be honest and say that was more about the friends I made there and not so much about my singing ability. Which, lets also be honest and say is minimal.

My husband is very musical and comes from a family where everyone plays an instrument and sings in tune. Well, not sure about my fil but everyone else, yes. Hubs played the trumpet growing up. And he sings and as I've mentioned here a time or ten, he never met a microphone he didn't want to step behind. He definitely has an ear for music...sometimes he annoys me when we're in the car and he changes the radio station before I even know what song is playing. I mean I haven't even caught the first note and I need several to identify the song anyway and he says 'oh, we don't like that one.' He only needs one note, sometimes only a half a note. I wanted my girls to have music because I think it adds so much to our lives. Both of my girls thankfully got their dad's genes here and both have lovely singing voices and between them play the piano, violin and guitar.

Growing up we listened to music on a transistor radio and we listened to a lot of am stations.WIBG, WFIL Philadelphia anyone? I remember getting my first stereo which also contained an 8-track tape player. Exciting times they were. I remember buying albums and finally seeing what the band actually looked like...no videos back then or video channels and of course no internet either so unless you saw a band in concert or bought their album you had no idea what they looked like. Even then sometimes the covers were something funky and you still had no clue. I know the sound is better on a CD but a CD case does not evoke the same feeling as the one you got perusing a brand new album. We still have our stereo up and running and sometimes play our albums.

My parents were pretty good when it came to what we listened to. I mostly remember going in my room and closing the door and if I wanted to play it loud (which is how I like my music still) I would put on my headphones. And headphones when I was a teenager were not teeny tiny little ear buds. They were huge. We did not know that CD's, walkmen, MP3 players and later, something called an ipod would be a part of our future. We listened to our albums on stereos with speakers the size of small children and we liked it.

I have siblings who are five and seven years older than me so they were teenagers in the late sixties and early seventies and I grew up listening to their music. I loved it...The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Herman's Hermits, too many to name really. Sometimes my younger sister and I would go into my older sisters room and we'd blast her stereo and dance on her canopy bed. We had little carrying cases of 45's too...remember the little insert that went in the center hole so they would play on a regular stereo? My younger sister and I shared a room and my brother's room was beside ours. He played the guitar and I remember the early days of his playing and listening thru the bedroom wall as he strummed House of the Rising Sun over and over and over. And over and over and over.

My dad loved country music which was not really anything like today's country music but he loved his Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride. My dad could not carry a tune at all but that did not stop him from singing along. My parents played a lot of Christian music too which I guess was contemporary in its day but I don't think they called it that back then. I loved the Gaithers and I can still remember the sound of George Beverly Shea singing "How Great Thou Art" which is one of my favorite hymns of all time.

What I really love about music is the ability it has to make you feel deeply and suddenly. Music carries you back to a place and time and I love the way I can be plodding along thru life and hear a song and suddenly be transported back to 1977. Or 1997. Music and memory go hand in hand for me.

I could never pick a favorite song but every now and then hubs and I will hear a song and say, 'Oh that one's on my all time top 10 list.' Which I kind of keep in my head and have never written down. I like the music of the 70's and early 80's the best probably because it was the soundtrack to my teenage/young adult years. And also because it was the best. I like country music today. I like beach music. I listen to a lot of contemporary Christian music and I like a lot of music from Broadway too. I never get tired of the soundtrack to Phantom of the Opera.

If I were naming favorite tunes I'd have to do it by category and even then I'm not sure I could do it. Music is as much about the mood I'm in and what is going on in my life as it is about the actual notes. There are a few songwriters who I think have a bit of the poet in them and I keep a running list of favorite song lines in my head too. A lot goes on in my head people. Jackson Browne, Billy Joel, Jim Croce...they fall into this category.

If I had to choose I'd say my favorite bands are The Eagles and U2. Fantastic music with lyrics that actually say something. If we are talking country music I love Kenny Chesney, Rascall Flats, and Brooks and Dunn. In the Contemporary Christian genre I listen to a lot of David Crowder Band and Point of Grace and I love old hymns too. My new favorite band which crosses lines when it comes to genre is NeedtoBreathe...they are amazingly talented and I have played their Outsiders cd at least a thousand times.

I feel like I need to link to a song here but how in the world can I pick just one? But I will...this is one of my all time favorites...one among hundreds...how can anyone not love the music of The Temptations?


And just in case you don't know NeedtoBreathe I feel I need to educate you...my daughter1 got me hooked on their music back before they were very well known. Bear attended the same uni as my girls and the band played at some fraternity events where daughter1 heard them and fell instantly in love with their music. Their song Something Beautiful is played a lot on the radio now but here's the title song....


Be sure to stop by Linda's blog today to read more Flashback Friday musical posts.

16 comments:

  1. You're already aware of how similar our taste in music is! Needtobreathe's song More Time is my favorite of theirs. I may have to do a post on that song alone.

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  2. Well back in my day, there were no headphones and not even 8-tracks. Just little 45 record players until my parents got the huge two-piece stereo. We could actually stack albums, and they would play all the way through one at a time. In high school we used to push back all of the furniture and have "dances" in our living room. Those were the days.

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  3. Funny how country music has changed. Kind of scary to think that one day our kids will be laughing that we actually used ipods back in the day. ;)

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  4. Great post! This was a fun topic! I am a fellow Eagle fan, as well as Kenny, Rascal Flatts, and Brooks & Dunn. You have great taste in music! LOL

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  5. We would get along just fine musically :) I've so enjoyed reading everyone's musical memories -- they've brought back a lot I had forgotten.

    Will have to come back and listen to the music when we're home. Right now we're at the house in Sta. Rosa and the internet is sketchy at best and VERY, VERY slow.

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  6. I loved reading this! You and I have a lot of similarities. And yes, I remember the 45 rpm inserts! Some were really hard to snap in!

    And in answer to your question in my comments, Yes, I loved the grape song! I was singing it just last night in the shower after writing my post! And then I remembered "Giggle, giggle if you want to, but I know it's still true that He's always gonna love me. . ." Amy's early days really had some fun songs!

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  7. I love that second song! I will have to check them out. :)

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  8. I love the description of speakers as being "the size of a small child."

    I (now) listen to a lot of the same music as has been mentioned in these posts (60s and 70s rock and roll)--but I can see that my experience with that music is radically different than it was then. I listen with earbuds or on my computer or using a CD in my car. It's not at all like the old records with their album covers.

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  9. Awww...Motown! Love it! Have a good weekend with Daughter#1!

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  10. Oh, I so enjoyed your entry, it brought back so many memories for me as well. Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, House of the Rising Son, George Beverly Shea and Just My Imagination, wow! And, I remember the adapter for the 45's, I had one of those too and almost wore it out. How far music has come, not sure it's all good,but nonetheless, that's the way it is. Blessings to you!

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  11. You know I love Needtobreathe!! Something Beautiful and The Outsiders are two of my absolute favorites of theirs.

    Love David Crowder Band too!

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  12. I think we grew up in the same time period. I loved my 45's and even a transister radio. Gary Puckett and the Union Gap were also favorites of mine. I loved this walk down memory lane.

    Blessings,
    Debbie

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  13. I came along a little after you, but not much. All of my teenage music came on cassette tapes - really hard to read the liner notes on those little things.

    "How Great Thou Art" - hymn perfection. The version I grew up on was by the Statler Brothers who my dad loved. Such harmonies!

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  14. I went to college with the POG girls. We went karaoke singing one night over in Hot Springs and they brought the bar/restaurant to a halt when it was their turn.

    Too fun.

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  15. When I was younger I didn't really "feel" music. The last few years music really speaks to me! I definitly have a lot of favorites. Lately I've been on a dance music kick!

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  16. Wow, I am sorry I missed this one, looks like a fun flashback. Trying to get caught up on some of my reading.
    until next time... nel

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