OT ALERT! Growing Old with the Rain King
In 1993, Counting Crows burst onto my musical consciousness and filled my imagination with an album called AUGSUT AND EVERYTHING AFTER – it is hard for me to remember how Adam Durwitz’s love and gift for words made their way into my then 20-something life. I had been very sick that year – and Durwitz’s pained and poignant world view (a peer and one whose roots were here in DC) became a constant companion to me in my recovery (think Walkman!). I recall time on the treadmill, regaining my strength and listening to what quickly became my anthem of aspiration and indignation (why was I so sick in the first place?), Rain King.
For me songs get caught in time – they are markers of a very personal moments, and locked forever to one, particular and powerful feeling or image (the soundtrack for our love-drenched drives in Provence is Paul Simon’s Obvious Child or I the melody of exhaustion and amazement to which I danced with my baby girl Lila is Van Morriosn’s Tupelo Honey). These songs and the related memories, like photographs are fixed, attached and hardly fluid.
Books are the opposite – with literature, the words, the stories, and of course, the meaning morph along with me. As time marches on my lens changes, the lesson of the book changes, the “take-away” is a whole new tale and I am once again alert and paying careful attention to what the author is sharing.
Yesterday, I listened to both a live and studio version of Rain King. Suddenly, I was keenly aware of the literary effect in this decades old song. And to Adam Durwitz’s credit – it was not a fixed, optimistic but painful image of a girl on a treadmill (not meant to be metaphor but worth noting) determined to get back to strength and power that I experienced in 1993. But rather, one of a present-day, still optimistic, energized and capable forty-something year old woman, with much more experience -from failure (first marriage) to great success (blended-family, friendships, Forty Weeks) and all things in between – but no less hope (though more fatigue on all levels). And, like Henderson (see the 1951 NYT Book review for a brief on the inspiration and noted character in the song) despite my successes and experiences (or perhaps because of them), still on my original path – further along on my road as the NYT review states: a solemn quest for “the great principles of life”–for spiritual peace, happiness and communion with truth and deity.
And it is here I will stay, listening to great music (remind me to share with you Mark Hoppus’review of my Ipod from a few years back) while on my journey which is forever intertwined with my commitment to others and their journey. Not particularly perfect, nor noble, nor original but certainly mine.
Now, it that is not OT, I don’t know what is!
October 30th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
“You’re So Vain” and any other Carly Simon song reminds me of trips when I was very young to upstate NY to visit my father’s family.
“We Didn’t Start The Fire” reminds me of 6th grade history class.
“Eye of the Tiger” reminds me of car pooling to high school soccer practices and games.
But my favorite song of all is called “Anywhere.” It’s the song my husband wrote, that his cousins sang at our wedding, about no matter where either of us are, we will follow each other.
It is true, audio, as much as visual and olfaction, play a huge role in our lives.