As immotive a vehicle as is music, I dont even recall if I think or not while Im listening to my fav, or just any old tune. Id suspect if the music is interesting, involving, and does sound very good, as it normally should, my thoughts are on it. Not elsewhere.
Of course now that Im all HDD all the time . Ive contracted ADD and only play the first minute or so of a tune, or less, then I double click another one, then another, and then another, until one resonates something inside of me. Only by hiding the remote, and using playlists, can I avoid hitting and quitting it and letting the music flow naturally..
Only when Im really bored, havnt brought in anything new to listen to, and possibly feeling very tired, my mind will drift off to some other current issue which is as yet unresolved.. did I pay so & so? Take out the trash? Put the clothes in the dryer? Turn off the stove?
Was I supposed to say something more profound? Such as .
I often return to those days of yore when the air was clean, and the waters were clear and my biggest problems were pimples and gas money?! Or back to those times where the occasional thoughts rested on and pondered whose finger is on the button that will end life as we know it on this planet? Wonder what kind of mood theyre in today?
Perhaps my thoughts were supposed to drift back to the Golden age of Rock & Roll recalling, Doo wop and its various One hit wonders and shooting stars? Or maybe only so far back as to rest them on Jerry Lee, & Elvis the Beatles, and the first festival at Woodstock Or to thoughts of how pure and honest the music was then? How it could stir emotions deeply in ones soul if the sticks doing the stirring were electric sticks, like a double neck Gibson, a Les Paul, or a Stratocaster! You are about forced to drift back there if it was being strummed and plucked by the likes of Page, Clapton, Walsh, Beck, Cat, Ted, or J Croce, etc now and then.
Or should my thoughts wash over to more political climes and its pundants . Men who said things like, Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
Or this mans words I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Or slip back to the fella who said these words with regularity , "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."
Or the guy who proclaimed, I am not a crook!
Maybe to the guy who said, I love the smell of Napalm in the morning!
Might be they ought race back to Odetta, Peter Paul and Mary, Marvin, and Grace Slick and the real Jefferson Airplane. To Dylan, and Arlo. To the riot in Watts back in 65. Abbie Hoffman and his crew. Patty Hearst. The S.D.S.
While Kruschev was trying to bury us back in the fifties, and later on Castro harbored our own epilogue just 8 minutes away. As the English rockers were invading us, music could remind or remove one from the pressure, but you had to choose carefully the avenue, device, or content to amuse yourself with by some fair degree of premeditation, if you hoped to evade topical interventions in your music..
Music for me then was both a heated voice crying out for change, and a savior of sorts for it ushered me away from the pressures and strife, the contentious times and woeful issues of the day. Even then and there, so tumultuous were those days even music itself could not be spared from the civil and social fall out which were near daily occurrences. Each and every genre of music was either touched enlightened, or violated, to some extent, as were we all.
Maybe instead, I was supposed to be thinking about how young I was and how fresh and exciting everything unfolding about me seemed? Just how special a time this is in the Age of Rock & Roll? How influential this era will be remembered? About dances, first dates, first anythings, and what I would do with my own life? Or how long is forever?
Or maybe how pitiful and senseless the war in South East Asia was? How some of my friends were lost or affected forever? Or maybe I should have just thought about Country Joe McDonald & The Fish? The unnatural disparity between the pop corn like establishments of communes, and the ill winds sweeping through the fibers of Helter Skelter and how Charles Manson could devolve and twist its message? Gurus. And just how much is the cost of freedom anyways? Did anyone ever figure that out? Will they?.
One couldnt help but ruminate on the times at hand, regardless the music. Back then music and society were fiercely engaged and forged together by a shotgun wedding. Life itself became written in lyrics, and a nations loss of innocence was the most notable outcome my generation. experienced.
Or more favorably, better still, how my girl and I made love during the rain inside our pup tent the night before the festival opened its gates . or if Jim Morrisons show was raided again if Ozzie was gonna eat a bat or a chicken head this week or will Alice Koopers new show actually have a real decapitation in it? Or where will one of the Rolling Stones O.D. this week?.... Or how unblieveable it was to hear Janis was gone forever. Mama Cass dieed how? Eating a sandwich? Amazing. I bet back then that Joe Cocker was next to shed the mortal coil but he sure fooled me.
Or to let them dwell on the new genre clammering for attention and emerging from grass roots America. Southern Rock!! Finally some honest fusion of a few other roots music, but with heart! I bet it will stick around forever! Silly me.
Now for something completely different, like, Take two of these when you go see Pink Floyd itll be a whole new ball game, I guarantee it! Soooo James Taylor actually was in a looney bin? Hmmm that explains a lot!
To the Dot Com & yahoo explosion, Jonestown, boy George, and Sting? Towards Mandella, the American Hostages, and the oil barons daisy chain that increased the price of gas? Hearing our President Ronald Regan nearly order M Gorbachov, Tare down that wall! How drug and alcohol rehab came into Vogue? How the rain could turn Purple? How Guns & Roses could live together? How souls like John Lennon could be wiped away so capriciously and so instantly . How the level of musicianship in the Hereafter is increasing at too rapid a rate!
Nope. I get those sorts of thoughts while watching PBS specials, and while replying to threads like these. When I listen to music, if I aint 100% into it, Im listening for some errors, artifacts, anomalies, etc. Otherwise Im staying in the moment and digging what is currently flowing out of my speakers.
Otherwise, Im prone to just think way too much.