This is a repost with a few minor edits from my LiveJournal blog, which I don’t use much anymore, but on LiveJournal I have both personal journal and a blog about issues of government secrecy and the Freedom of Information Act. Both journals go back to about May 2003. See: Mad-Jamison on LiveJournal and BelowTopSecret formerly known as AboveTopSecret, until I was threatened with a lawsuit.
At the moment I’m listening to Afraid of Everyone by The National (High Violet Album). I was beginning to get philosophical on Facebook in a way that was more suited to LiveJournal, because of the length constraints on wall updates. I am so indebted to music in general, even though I do not play an instrument or sing. It’s very difficult to express how music affects me emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, holistically. It always has.
My earliest memories of loving music in a way that could be called deep, probably go back to about age 12 or so. My parents had this really good radio that you didn’t see too often back then. It looked military or something. It was a big black metal box with lots of dials and switches, and I think it could get a lot of different bands (meaning different frequencies across the whole radio spectrum). I think you could get short wave, am. fm, police & fire, and possibly even military frequencies. I have no idea where they got it, but it was up on a shelf, and I’d stand on a stool and search for music with that big round dial that was very sensitive, and I’d pick up amazing music from what seemed like another world to me.
The music that made an impression on me back then when I was so young, were singers like Buddy Holly, Neil Sedaka, Peter & Gordon, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, The Beau Brummels, Gerry & the Pacemakers, The Searchers, and many others of the late fifties and early sixties. In fact, I seemed to be always searching, knowing that what I was listening to was leading somewhere important, and that there was “something out there”. This turned out to be true in ways I could never have predicted or had any inkling of.
In 7th and 8th grade my world changed in many ways. There was more darkness and danger in the world than I could ever have been aware of, but the assassination of John F. Kennedy was something that touched everyone and changed how we thought and felt. Earlier that year nuclear tests were being carried out in the Nevada desert, Kim Philby the British double agent defected to the Soviet Union, and the CIA’s domestic operations unit was created to spy on U.S. citizens without their knowledge.
My music world began to explode in slow motion when I first heard The Beatles. Even their earliest, simplest music was so fresh, so new, so different, and so full of creative energy, it opened up a whole new world for me. I remember purchasing my first 45rpm record, She Loves You, and a year later (1964) my first album, A Hard Day’s Night. For a long time, maybe several years, all I bought was Beatles albums: Beatles ’65, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, before buying any other music.
To be continued…
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