Standing outside a broken phone booth with money in my hands by Primitive Radio Gods for some reason takes me back to camping trips. I think I listened to it on a radio in the tent and I really liked the song. Nice post!
I'd forgotten about that song. I don't associate that one with camping, but Hanson's song "MMMBop" reminds of that entertainment barn at the camping ground we went to in Hocking Hills.
My earliest musical memory is a 45 on the record player, Nat King Cole singing "Ramblin' Rose," released in 1962 when I was seven years old. I can still see the label. My mother loved that song, and I wondered why, and continued to wonder over the years. Probably she ... a housewife first, then divorced, then tied to a dead-end job before she met a new man with money ... liked to imagine herself a Rose, ramblin'. The way men like to imagine themselves as the wanderer, that song.
This is a phenomenal post & I really appreciate your insights! I'm also impressed that your mom was into Jane Siberry; neither my parents nor those of my contemporaries were aware of her existence, much less into her music. I don't remember either of my parents listening to music outside of the confines of their cars, though when I was a freshman in high school, they were kind enough (or possibly prescient enough) to set me up with a component stereo system with a CD player, which had a tremendous effect on the way I engage with music that reverberates even now. (I love making playlists and used to love making mixtapes and CDs, but I tend to only listen to albums, which I ascribe to patterns inscribed on my psyche way back in 1989.)
Thank you for sharing this. My parents were always listening to music in the house. I've always liked passively consuming music, through the radio or playlists, but I've never been as into curating my own collection. I wonder if that is because music was always being played for me growing up.
Someone with more patience (and a better sense of qualitative research methods) could probably do something interesting parsing out how the early influences and constraints on people shape their adult listening habits. At the risk of sounding like a terminally Gen X person, I think the ability to make mixtapes became for me another avenue for attempting to communicate things I couldn't quite say. Actually, I'm sure it did.
Standing outside a broken phone booth with money in my hands by Primitive Radio Gods for some reason takes me back to camping trips. I think I listened to it on a radio in the tent and I really liked the song. Nice post!
I'd forgotten about that song. I don't associate that one with camping, but Hanson's song "MMMBop" reminds of that entertainment barn at the camping ground we went to in Hocking Hills.
Yes!
My earliest musical memory is a 45 on the record player, Nat King Cole singing "Ramblin' Rose," released in 1962 when I was seven years old. I can still see the label. My mother loved that song, and I wondered why, and continued to wonder over the years. Probably she ... a housewife first, then divorced, then tied to a dead-end job before she met a new man with money ... liked to imagine herself a Rose, ramblin'. The way men like to imagine themselves as the wanderer, that song.
Thanks for sharing this memory. I'm not sure I'm familiar with Ramblin' Rose but will give it a listen.
This is a phenomenal post & I really appreciate your insights! I'm also impressed that your mom was into Jane Siberry; neither my parents nor those of my contemporaries were aware of her existence, much less into her music. I don't remember either of my parents listening to music outside of the confines of their cars, though when I was a freshman in high school, they were kind enough (or possibly prescient enough) to set me up with a component stereo system with a CD player, which had a tremendous effect on the way I engage with music that reverberates even now. (I love making playlists and used to love making mixtapes and CDs, but I tend to only listen to albums, which I ascribe to patterns inscribed on my psyche way back in 1989.)
Thank you for sharing this. My parents were always listening to music in the house. I've always liked passively consuming music, through the radio or playlists, but I've never been as into curating my own collection. I wonder if that is because music was always being played for me growing up.
Someone with more patience (and a better sense of qualitative research methods) could probably do something interesting parsing out how the early influences and constraints on people shape their adult listening habits. At the risk of sounding like a terminally Gen X person, I think the ability to make mixtapes became for me another avenue for attempting to communicate things I couldn't quite say. Actually, I'm sure it did.