Life's Soundtrack

I was driving to work yesterday, when I accidentially hit the CD button on the car stereo while trying to switch radio stations. Normally, that wouldn't do anything, but on my recent trip south, I had found an old Bruce Springsteen compilation I had made a few years ago. This particular compilation was mostly acoustic stuff I had garnered from my vast collection of bootlegs, and it began with an almost dirge-like version of Thunder Road. Instead of switching back over to the news, I eased back into the seat and let the music play.

I did not listen to Bruce Springsteen at that time in my life when I could have seen him before stardom, when he repeatedly played small venues like the Main Point or The Tower near Philly. So his songs really never were part of the soundtrack of my youth, as was , oh say . . . Jethro Tull. But as I listened yesterday morning, speeding along into the dark, lyrics touched and prodded almost ancient feelings that consumed me back then, back when I felt completely alone, that it almost felt like I HAD listened to those songs back then. Almost like they had been written about my feelings. And I really can't explain what feelings that they touch, but it made me think of the many songs I listened to that had that quality, that power to allow you to make that song YOUR song. And how even today when I hear them I can be transported back to a moment in time and relive that moment so vividly that I can even feel the temperature, and see the condensation roll down the car windows.

Interestingly, today I read an interview with Bruce by Nick Hornby, and they both touched on the subject;

NH: Does it feel like young man's music to you now, the first three, four records?

BS: I would say that it is, you know, because a lot of young people actually mention those records to me. . . . a lot of the music was about a loss of innocence, there's innocence contained in you but there's also innocence in the process of being lost. And that was the country at the time I wrote that music . . . immediately preceding the end of the Vietnam war. . . . We were a funny amalgam of things at that moment. There was so much familiarity in the music that for a lot of people it felt like home; it touched either your real memories or just your imaginary home, the place that you think of when you think of your home town, or who you were, or who you might have been. . . . And yet at the same time we were in the process of moving some place else, and that was acknowledged in my music also . . . That's why 'Born to Run' resonates and 'Thunder Road'; people took that music and they really made it theirs. I think I worked hard for that to happen . . . It's the motive when you go out there. You want that reaction: 'Hey, I know that kid. That's me!'. Because I still remember that my needs were very great, and they were addressed by things that people at the time thought were trash, popular music and B-movies . . . But I found a real self in them that helped me make sense of the self that I grew up with - the person I actually was . . .



Music has an incredible power in our lives, and I guess I believe it has it's most influence when we are young, when we are trying to discover who we are. We often take the words to popular music almost as the words of prophets, and we can hear in those songs the same questions that burn in our souls, and hope somehow that they will also help us with the answers.

So I've decided on a new thread for this blog, my life's soundtrack. These will be songs that I'd use as an overlay of the movie of my life, but they will also be the songs that helped me through those hardest moments of my youth. Hopefully I can relay those stories along with the songs, and if possible I'd like to figure out how to include the links to the songs.

I think this will be an interesting journey . . . hopefully you'll agree.

And I'll gladly acknowledge anyone with a solution to the link issue.