Streams of Consciousness

I can already see that it is going to be difficult to stick to my intention of picking only five songs from each year.  I know I can do whatever I want, because, hey, this is my project.  But, I'm practicing staying within the rules I've set out for myself, even if it's difficult.  My therapist might call this an 'exposure.'  Still, the punk rocker inside of me wants to strike out against any notions of form and order.  This tension between form and freedom always lives within me, and manifests itself in different ways, sometimes subtle, sometimes like a screaming banshee.   So many of these songs lead to memories, and then on to different threads of analysis, regret, gratitude and joy.  I've come to think of nostalgia as a dangerous emotion in and of itself.  It's only when it can be used as a catalyst for further creativity that I see it as something positive.  But, it's so easy to get trapped in it, bogged down in memories and a hopel...

1972 was a year of war and scandal.  Vietnam.  Watergate.  The world was so fucked up that the Nobel Committee didn't even bother to award a Peace Prize.  Don't blame me.  I wasn't around until September 2, at approximately 10:30 AM.  On that fine morning (actually, I have no idea what the weather was like), I made my entrance into the world in the southwestern PA town of Washington, Pennsylvania.  Curiously, though I wouldn't meet her until 1998 in Kansas City, MO, my wife Sharon was born exactly one month later in the very same hospital.  I was fortunate to be born into a loving family.  I take my elder kin's word for it that I brought joy and happiness to them.  Then again, what else were they going to tell me? What was life like during these first four months?  Obviously, I don't remember anything specific, but certainly I was beginning to learn things that are still part of me to this day.  I was the first child for my par...