50 Years of Song Project: 1972

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 parents, who were fairly young, but they had been married for a couple of years already.  I'm sure I caused them some sleepless nights (early on, and then again for decades), but I like to think they thought it was all worth it in the end.  I'm certainly grateful to them for bringing me into this world and loving me in a way that never had me question, even for one second, their love for me.      

American Pie

The quintessential American storytelling song.  Puzzling over its esoteric lyrics often distracts me from the deep nostalgia it evokes.  It's a song that makes me wish I grew up in the 50s and 60s.  It makes me think of Buddy Holly, or scenes from movies like Grease and American Graffiti.   It's one of those great songs that everyone loves to sing, even if they know less than half the words.  As a bonus, Weird Al did a sublime parody of the song many years later centered around the Star Wars storyline.  

Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)

A fine song in its own right, this one became somewhat of a college anthem for me and my pals.  Anytime I hear it, I'm transported back to South Johnson Street in Iowa City, Iowa, circa 1992.  We had a friend named Brandy, but I think we would have listened to it just as much had we not known anyone by that 'fine' name.  This is a fun song to sing along to in bars.  Here's to all the women that walk through silent towns loving men who aren't around.      

My Ding-A-Ling

I remember discovering this song when I was a kid and thinking it was the funniest, most creatively subversive thing I'd ever heard.  I felt like I was getting away with something when I listened to it secretly in my bedroom.  It feels like it lays right on the boundary between my time of innocence and experience, leaning ever so slightly toward innocence.  

Heart of Gold

One of my all-time favorites.  The harmonica.  The guitar.  The searching lyrics.  Neil was relatively young (ha, see what I did there) when he wrote it, but it feels like he had already lived a lifetime's worth of false starts and learning experiences.  The phrase, 'and I'm getting old' repeated several times throughout the song is a haunting reminder that we all have limited time to find whatever it is that we are searching for.  I think of this song as a defiant call to keep searching, regardless of what may or may not be found.    

Doctor My Eyes

Like a lot of songs, this one just seems to take on more and more poignancy as I get older.  I fell in love with the melody of this song long before I ever stopped to listen to what was actually being said.  Similar to Heart of Gold, I'm amazed that a 25-year-old could pen something with the wisdom that can only come from vast experience.  I may have felt some of these things when I was 25, but there was no way I could have found a vocabulary for any of it.  I guess that's what makes them geniuses, and me, well, me.