From the Facebook, but posting here for the records:
10 Albums Challenge Day 6 … supposed to be “… an album cover that greatly influenced your taste in music. No explanations, no reviews …” But, sigh, I can’t stop myself:
While I could read, I was never really a reader. One, it took me a long while to figure out how to read and write. Too hyper? Too distractible? Too dumb? Who knows. I was in morpographic spelling class. I had a whack of sessions with a speech therapist, to learn how to say the “th” sound as opposed to saying it with a “d” sound: “my dumb” versus “my thumb”. But then in grade ten I got to read Cather in the Rye. It just hit me like a ton of bricks. Prior to this, it was all comic books (pictures) and movies and TV, but now it was about these books, you ever heard of them? Very engrossing!
So, towards the end of high school, after digging into books and the written word, and keeping a journal, writing jokes, writing scripts with Duane, I also got more and more into writing lyrics and songs. Singer-songwriter stuff like John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett, Bruce Hornsby, Robbie Robertson, Neville Brothers, the Boss, and Bonnie Riatt … my good friend Mike Sousa turned me onto Van Morrison, which kicked me into reading about Buddhism. It was a very alive time, flooding with new ideas, hikes and bike rides in the Gatineau’s … my Walt Whitman years.
And then I went off to University. York U. Film Production. And this new band came out, Counting Crows. Down the dorm hall a couple friends had it on, Bruce and Craig; cooler second year kids. And I was off. This record was the PERFECT record for me to dig into my sadness and loneliness and desire to be isolated to become a brilliant artist … well, I was sad anyway, that much I did achieve! (Not sure why I thought being sad and miserable and digging up the past endlessly was the path towards intelligence.)
Whenever this record comes on, it just tracks alongside about two years of my life VERY deeply – first and second year Uni. It pushed me away from guitar god and more into “songwriter”? And what about these lyrics, what’s they deal with, like, the poetry of lyrics? It also tracks with that David Matthews line, “Twenty-three and so tired of life …”
As connected as I am to this record, it’s great to keep growing up, to snap out of it, and get back to thinking the world can be full of wonder and heartache, but not so self-involved. (Says the guy who keeps writing these record reviews all about himself. Sigh. Maybe we never grow out of ourselves?)