Musical Time Travel

Time and technology marches on, but there are things about how are mind works that seem to be universal.  One of these things which has fascinated me for years is that there are certain songs from the past which bring back memories of certain times and experiences when I hear them.  Of course, I know that this phenomenon is not unique to me at all.  In fact, Clint Black had a hit song based on on it!  I have dozens on those in my mental filing system, and each one brings back a memory of some time or event. When I hear them I smile, or frown, or whatever.

The phenomenon I am talking about here goes beyond simple memory recall.  What I mean is, there are a few - very few - songs which bring back not only a memory, but bring back a whole complete set of emotions and attitudes.  I not only remember the song from it's time, but I am psychologically transported to the mind-state of the point in my life the song represents.  For instance, when I hear this I suddenly find I am 15 again.  It's like all of the psychological changes of the past 4 decades are not only forgotten, but cease to exist entirely, like they never happened.  It of course brings back vignettes - maybe screen caps is a better term - of my life at that time, but the overwhelming sensation is that of, well, being 15.  With all the freedom from worry and optimism that entails.

There are two or three others, and every time I hear them it is always the same.  And every time I hear them and experience the sensations I find myself wondering about it, why it works the way it does, and why just with those songs.  Or why this song transports me to (in a sense remember) an age before I can even remember. I was only 5 when it was popular, but it causes that same kind of thing, only without any "screen caps" to go along with it.  No memories, no real associations, just the sensation.

The old commercial tagline was "A mind is a terrible thing to waste", and it as true today as it was then. (probably needs to be said more today than then, but that is for another post!)  But things like the above phenomenon reminds us that, even though we know how valuable our minds are, and thus would never want them wasted, we understand them - really understand them - very little indeed.

Understanding The Donald

I have been a political animal for my whole life - thanks Dad.  I have seen a lot, and while I make no claim to being a genius, I am amazed that people in the media who should know (or be able to know) why Donald Trump has hit such a chord with the American public have so badly missed it.

So, folks, here it is, in simple terms that the folks who live both outside the top 1% income bracket and outside the northeast corridor can understand, but which the media apparently cannot.

People are tired of being pissed on and told that it's raining.

They have been pissed on by NAFTA, by GATT, by Open Borders, and by every third-world country with the presence of mind to grease the right political palms in Washington, DC and get a deal for themselves to maximize both their own growth and the political war chests of those who do their bidding.  All of that crap served one purpose and one purpose only - to maximize the wealth of the very top level of society at the expense of the rest.  I mean, how many abandoned factories does one have to see to realize that this has happened??? Of course, the media rarely ventures out into the hinterlands to actually see any factories - abandoned or otherwise.

No hard feelings against those countries, and those immigrants.  They saw an opportunity to better their situation and they took it.  Those hard feelings (maybe hatred is a better word) are now being manifested against The Bushes, The Clintons, and everyone else of that ilk.  Those hard feelings include their sycophants in the media, BTW.  Those being, of course, the same sycophants who can's see why the masses haven't fallen in love with Jeb Bush, or Hillary Clinton.

P.S.  This post is written about Donald Trump, but the same reasoning applies to Bernie Sanders,  the Democratic equivalent of Trump, who is striking the same chord on the other side of the aisle.

How Did We Get Here

Some time ago, I went out to take The Dog on her nightly walk around the neighborhood. It was late September, and a perfect, warm, clear North Carolina evening. I rounded the corner, and headed up the street. A few steps later my ears were treated to the most pleasant sound - back-door neighbor, sitting on his screened in porch in the dark, softly strumming his guitar. The chords made a nice tune - though not one I could recognize - so I walked quietly and slowly, stopping to let The Dog sniff the ground profusely. It was all so perfectly pleasant that I began to think about it and reflect on the difference between hearing Honest-To-God music, played live by a human being, and hearing a recording thereof. All that reflection got me to thinking....

HOW DID THE WORLD GET SO SCREWED UP?

How did we get to the point where we were willing to accept a cheap, mass produced reproduction of music instead of the real thing?  I could see the utility of recordings in some circumstances.  For example, were it not for that technology vast numbers of people would never get the chance to be exposed to Beethoven.  Recorded music (on any medium) allows us to experience a breadth of music few could ever even come close to experiencing live.  But how did it get so far afield of that?  Why were we ever willing to abandon the pleasure of a few friends or family playing (on guitar, mandolin, piano, accordion, concertina, saxophone or fiddle just to name some instruments from my personal, very limited, experience) and/or singing a tune?  Was it just easier?  Or was it that the professionals we heard on the radio or recordings were so much better technically that they made our home-grown music seem inadequate?

Whatever the reason, we are here now.  But the game is not over yet.  We, as a culture, having made the  jump from listening to real music to listening to a recording of real music (important semantic distinction between music as it is being played and a recording thereof), we now seem to be ready to accept LIVE music which is so post-processed that it is essentially a digital construct and not a human product in any realistic sense - think autotune.

Now I recognize that there are those who actually appreciate and prefer the synthetic version of music (and other things as well) to the real, human-made live honest-to-God version, and, if that is a well informed decision, i.e. they have been well exposed to both versions and have chosen one over the other, then I have to respect that.  Truth be known, I like Velveeta more than Cheddar.  But I am saddened that so many people willing accept "post-processed" entertainment.  Saddened, that is, but not surprised at all because that is all they have ever had the opportunity to hear and learn to love.

I have always had a certain distaste for the term "developing a taste for", as it carries with it a certain level of condescension, but in this case I think it to be exactly the right term - no condescension intended.  I cannot condescend without condescending upon myself (if that is a real term), for I have been there, and learned from my own prejudices.  You see, once upon a time I hated - h a t e d - old time Country & Western music.  I was a lifelong hatred that I held until one day, out of the blue, my friend invited me to a Nanci Griffith concert.  I had never even heard of Nanci Griffith, but, upon seeing her live, I fell in love with her music - hard.  Within a day or two, my friend had "burned" me a couple of cassettes, and I could not listen to them enough.  Hell, I still listen to them (though Cassette players are hard to find nowadays), along with other CD's and MP3's I have purchased over the years. Nanci's country sound was the gateway drug to classic country, bluegrass, old time music, etc.  I still love it and still listen to this day.  I am notoriously bad at having to learn the same lesson over and over again, but that one lesson I took to heart.

Writ Large...

Music was, however, only the inspiration for this diatribe, not the sole expression of the phenomenon being addressed.  The phenomenon, though focused mainly in the entertainment industry, exists in many facets of our society, and is in fact nothing new.  In earlier times (damn that makes me sound old) they were the exception to the rule though.  For instance, I remember occasionally eating TV Dinners, but home cooked - often home grown - food was the rule.  Now it seems most everything is synthetic, from clothing to foodstuffs to music to relationships.  How many films are produced that are not CGI'ed to death?  How many images are not polished and spiffed up by photoshop or some other such package? What is real?

The argument could be made that it is all real, but is it?  Does it not warp our sense of reality when a beautiful woman - more beautiful than any human has a right to be - is still not good enough for a magazine cover?  Does it not warp our sense of how the world works when it's not good enough to show a car being driven at (or beyond) the limit in a film, but rather to have she big screen insanity which we are fed of late?

Hope?

Is there hope that somehow someday things will be appreciated for what they are in the purest natural sense, and not as synthetics?  Thank God it is happening in other areas of life, witnessed by everything from local beers to local fresh food.  On a personal note, I took my daughter to a live Shakespeare performance and she was floored. Loved every minute of it, and can't wait to go again.  Sure it was The Bard, but it was the live theater performance with real people that was the real selling point.  I figure if a tween who lives on a steady diet of pop music and anime can fall in love with The Real Thing, then pretty much anyone can.  If the horse is thirsty, and you lead him to water, you don't need to make him drink - he'll drink on his own.