That Moment of Somebody Explaining Your Life

"You can never underestimate that moment of somebody explaining your life to you, something you thought was inexplicable, through music. That was the way out of loneliness."

-- Carrie Brownstein, Sleater-Kinney

I am one of those people who doesn't need music in my life except for those periods of loneliness, and that has happened twice. Three times if you count the time I rode along with my son's pre-teen loneliness.

The first was my own, so I can tell you things about music between 1964 and 1971. Then my son was born and I turned the radio off. I recognize song titles, melodies, band names, band drama from that period and it brings back fairly pleasant memories.

The second time was his own early years of teenhood, 1983-1988, more or less. It was also when MTV first came into our home and when he wasn't watching it, I would have it on as background music to my housewifery. So I became familiar with Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, and dozens of one-hit wonder bands that had memorable videos to go along with their songs. By the time my son was 16, he took his music to his room and shut the door, so I know Def Leppard was going on, but I wouldn't recognize them if I saw a photo or heard a song. There was also retro things afoot. He was sneaking off to Grateful Dead concerts, more to live in the parking lot than to see the show. I could hear The Doors coming through his closed door, a band I most certainly did recognize.

Then he left home, and I got divorced. I met other people, and things didn't work out, and I entered my second adolescence and profound period of loneliness, 1993-1997, when again I can tell you about bands and band dramas, and recognize songs because I listened to the radio again. I know all about Nirvana and the grunge movement out of Seattle and Oregon, the flannel shirts. The music again explained my life to me, But even more than that, I know about the local bands of that time and their music because I decided -- despite knowing nothing about what had happened locally prior to this, to do a local music newspaper. I know about doing newspapers, and it was the topic that was soundtracking the loneliness of that period. So they came together, and it was pretty good.

That period began to fade away starting in 1997 when I met other people who did work out, and I went back to work full time in the adult world, and turned the radio off again. Things are busy, sometimes too busy, and I don't need my life explained. I have built a little outpost for myself, and my life is the treadmill I am on to sustain it. It's not particularly fulfilling unless you consider maintaining what comforts you have as the mission. The music I sometimes allow back in is from the other periods, just to remember where I was and how I got here.

Like last night I got out of bed because it was suddenly very important that I download Arlo Guthrie's "City of New Orleans." Guthrie explained my life to me during two of my wilderness periods. His "Alice's Restaurant" bookended my college years. I wrote a parody of it for my college newspaper about standing on line at the bookstore at the beginning of the semester that put me on the map as a writer when I was one among thousands of anonymous kids on campus. 

And, as a new divorcee, between jobs, and not knowing what to do next, I attended an Arlo Guthrie concert at the Flood Zone by myself and felt transcended. I felt like maybe I could see a pathway out. We sat in chairs for that show. I thought it was always going to be that civilized. I wanted to write about it, but no one wanted to publish it. This was before the Internet. So I had to start my own newspaper.