Diamonds and Rust - The Acoustic Storm & Sunday Night
Let me preface this by saying that I absolutely loathe commercial radio. It’s unfathomable to me how it even exists in this day of Ipods, MP3 players, and Sirius Satellite, but there it is. I very seldom turn it on, but the day conspired against me.
It started the night before. Saturday night we were up very late waiting for my son to return from a trip with friends to Bush Gardens. While I waited, I figured I’d set the MP3 player up with an audio book for the drive to Virginia, where I pick up my two boys from a previous marriage every other week. Anyway, I won’t name the author, but I chose short stories that should have tipped me off by the fact they were only burned on CD for review and awards consideration and had been published as downloads on a web site. Further evidence of the horror to come should have been the Native American cutesy titles of the stories. Nothing prepared me for the reality.
Sunday morning I popped the cord into the MP3 player, cranked the speaker, and found myself listening to arguably the worst narrator I’ve ever heard droning on about the wind spirit maripowhatsit and the love she had for the bulbous-toed frog spirit, or some equally asinine drivel. I’ll tell you, I was actually ANGERED by it. I pulled the plug on that fast with a promise to myself to ritually SMASH the CDs when I got back home. I listened to various rock stations, flipping madly about in the hope of hear something - ANYTHING - that I hadn’t heard so many times the music made scream, or a station without some moron making sophomoric jokes, or a loud-mouthed advertising “voice” screaming about factory invoice pricing. Not good.
The one high point was the discovery of a song I wasn’t familiar with - Breathe(2AM) by Anna Nalick - a vocalist I was also not familiar with. She sounds to me something like a cross between Tori Amos and Alanis Morisette. I try to keep up on music, but it’s as futile a pursuit as trying to keep up with all the new authors - and probably even more annoying because to find new music requires listening to a lot of crap before you get what you are looking for. Anyway…a scrap of the lyrics stuck in my head and I was able to look it up - track her down - and add her to Pandora:
“2 AM and I’m still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it’s no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you’ll use them, however you want to”
On the road home from taking the boys back, I flipped onto our local classic rock station, ready to cringe, and was met by a radio show - syndicated - called “The Acoustic Storm.” The DJ and the format are as cheesy as it gets - breathy voices acting like they are calming you - stupid weather references - you can imagine, I’m sure - if not, here’s their web page - find them on a station near you and give a listen: The Acoustic Storm.
The point is, I hit one of those magic strings of songs that can carry you away. In the past this has usually happened with an album, or late at night on some off-hours radio show where the advertisers have less say in what I will “like” — or when someone else forced me to listen to something new, and they were correct. It started with The Moody Blues, which was pleasant - Tuesday Afternoon. Next was Yes - And You and I, Live from La La Land - and Jon Mellancamp’s Small Town. Then we hit Joan Baez - I don’t know why, but with the radio cranked, that gorgeous acoustic guitar strumming in the background, and her love song to Bob Dylan rolling from the speakers, I was blown away. I know that’s what the song is about; it’s a haunting call in the darkness from one great, poetic voice to another.
It got me thinking about lyrics, and poetry, and stories, and how they mean one thing to their creator, and something absolutely different to each and every person that encounters them…no less magic, just different. If you don’t believe that explain how that same hit - lyrics mildly modified - became a hit for Judas Priest, who I’m fairly certain had nothing at all to do with Bob Dylan…
I arrived home pretty soon after that…nothing after Joan hit that same level, though the contemplative, thoughtful mood she brought me lingered. I’ll leave you with more words…hers, not mine - but they are mine as I use them - as Anna Nalick suggests - any way that I want to…
“Now I see you standing
With brown leaves falling around
And snow in your hair
Now you’re smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel
Over Washington Square
Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and there
Now you’re telling me
You’re not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
Because I need some of that vagueness now
It’s all come back too clearly
Yes I loved you dearly
And if you’re offering me diamonds and rust
I’ve already paid…”
Joan Baez
10/6/08, 3:42 PM |
Once again, we have the same feelings on commercial radio. Jezus godz, how can anybody stand it? Alas, at the office, we can play the radio, but we can only pick up two stations from our cubby in the middle of a concrete cell. I figured it out the other day. I have been employed at TEC for approximately 2,470 days.
That’s exactly how many times I’ve heard “Proud Mary” by Credence and “Piano Man” by Billy Joel in the last 9 1/2 years.
10/6/08, 4:07 PM |
God…when you put it that way, it sounds even worse…but couldn’t one of you plug some speakers into an Ipod or an MP3 player?
10/8/08, 6:34 PM |
I get interrupted too much at work; I don’t like having earplugs in when I have to deal with people coming in regularly.
10/8/08, 6:43 PM |
I didn’t say anything about headphones, man…they make all kinds of little speaker setups for mp3s. I have a $20 cd / tape deck I got for my car at Roses - it has an auxiliary plug that will play an mp3 player. It frees you up from the commercial radio, at least.