Isn't that the way it is with the senses?
We already KNOW before we know, ya know?! HA!
Music has been one of the things that reached me first I think.
It makes sense you know.
We are told babies are subjected to mother's music choices in-eutero, developing a taste or disdain for it then.
I think my mother listened to any kind of hippy music she could in 1968.
She and Dad certainly had a bit of the back to the land lust in their hearts when they moved the entire family of themselves, four kids, and one (ME!) on the way to the farm on Garrison Creek in September 1968.
That is one of those things I have yet to ask Mom -
"What in the heck were you thinking at that time?!"
I laugh because of course I know some of the answers to that question already, but of course, there are always things left unsaid.....
The music of the late 1960's and the early 1970's really touched my young heart.
The other children were older and had chores.
I was THE BABY - I still am at age 44......
THE BABY was too little, too young, too bratty, too pestering, too .....precious? to allow to go gallivanting like the rest all over 65 acres of heaven and dangers.
As such I played with the farm animals and played pretend a lot.
When I was old enough to be trusted with the portable record player - under Mom's watchful eye at the kitchen table- I was allowed to listen to certain albums of my older siblings' collections.
But the things I liked most to listen to were the songs played on the still young FM band of the radio!
This included : Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, The Mamas and The Papas, just all sorts of stuff.
This was a time in music history for exploration.
New freedoms, new technology, new laws - all things were getting an overhaul in our country then.
This was reflected in the lyrics, and the sounds, the instruments, the singers and song writers.
Most of the songs I remember today go back to that period of my life.
My surroundings were idyllic and like paradise so my recollections of the background music that filled my life carries that connotation also.
Yesterday as I drove in the car I put one of my CSNY Cd's in the stereo. (That's Crosby Stills Nash and Young for those too young to know...)
To my delight my 6 year old daughter knew the lyrics as well as I did.
Here was our favorite from yesterday:
Before the drive in the car, but after I heard the reference to the Lovin' Spoonful, I also was made aware of Richie Havens' passing.
Here is another influence in my childhood:
One of my favorites of his covers:
When music is so simple, so revealing, so pure - how can it not touch a person's heart?
Then again these songs reflected what I was being taught in my everyday life so it all seemed to flow together and seem right with the world.
Little did I know that the world across the creek and down that country road was so very different than what I was taught at home, or what I was hearing in the songs on the radio.
When life gets crazy, or I do, I always turn to those songs of that time.
There was a great collective angst in the American life at that time, even if we were told to have a Coke and a Smile, or use Palmolive to have the softest hands and nails - thereby making our domestic lives blissful.....or some other tripe that was thrown in our faces by media.
I know my forum here is history.
Art history is so relevant.
Cultural history in all forms is so relevant.
There are things to be learned in all the corners of life folks.
Art is just one of the mediums in which we are pushed to tweak our perspective to see the other person's perspective a bit better.
Maybe their perspective is so much more like our own than what we previously believed.
Music has always been a basic human common denominator.
Across all cultures people can enjoy a simple beat, rhythm, tune, note.
I challenge you to go out and find a common rhythm with another being today.
MAKE history for a change, not just read about it, or ponder it.
Me, and our dog Troubles -aptly named, roughly 1972 or so.
-Suzanna
