Rock On!

Life is running at a crazy crazy speed right now. I am doing more time in my car than I am at home and trying to find the time to do anything in between sleep and running is not easy. The piles of dirty clothes in my laundry room are a testament to my hectic schedule and my lack of motivation in my seldom acquired down time. However, all this drive time does give me time to be in my own head and think. Some call this dangerous.....I call it....creativity in the making!!!! (cue the hand wringing and the sinister laugh....bwhahahahahaha)

So as I was driving David to early morning physical therapy this morning, I was trying to plan in my head what I was going to attempt to accomplish today. Chores were dancing through my sleep deprived head as my playlist played in the background as the musical backdrop for the day. Suddenly, More than a Feeling, by Boston came on and all thoughts of work went out of my brain and straight out the car window. I was in the moment and that moment was 1978! 

In 1978, I was a 9th grader. While the details are a bit foggy, I believe the English classes had library for 30 or 45 minutes per week. Usually it was quietly checking out books, periodicals and magazines and quietly reading for whatever time we had left. However, because we were 9th graders (the seniors of the junior high set) for one month, we were allowed on library day to bring our favorite albums and play them while we book browsed and read. How cool we thought the librarian was that month. I brought nothing because my record collection contained, John Denver, Barry Manilow and about a thousand 45's that my mother would indiscriminately pick up at garage sales. To be fair, I had an amazing although under appreciated selection of music. Everything from Elvis to Smokey, the Byrds, the Turtles and the Monkees. What I wouldn't give for that collection now. But I digress.......

At that time, my music tastes had never been cultivated past my 45's or my mothers old time favorites....the Platters, Johnny Mathis and Andy Williams. I was however, a radio junkie, but at that point in time, most radio was pop and nothing more extreme. If you wanted to hear the Doors, Pink Floyd or even Heart, you had to hit a more alternative or even underground station. I did not really come from an underground family, so my musical education was pretty much stuck back in the 1960's and 1970's pop. That all changed though, in that library.....in 1978. As I sat there listening, feeling oddly excited, I heard Boston's.....More than a Feeling and it was love at first listen. For the very first time, and from that moment on, I was outside the musical box that my mother and my 45's had previously created for me. The excitement and the music were no longer contained and now.....there was no turning back.

Over those next few weeks, I was introduced to Styx, Grand Illusion, Kansas, Leftoverture and of course, my beloved Boston. I was lulled into a new world of rock where the music literally took me out of myself and changed how I felt in that moment. I began to see music much differently after that and my taste in bands and singers began to evolve from Cheer up Sleepy Jean to Carry on My Wayward Son. There was something about these bands that made me feel like I was someone else. They transported me and brought me back with their strong rhythms and amazing vocals. I never wanted the music to stop.

Of all the bands though, Boston captured me heart and soul. More than a Feeling, was my go to song. It was my get away from the world and find myself song and many was the time I would hide myself away, turn on my album and just listen. It was a mixture of the words and the music blending together and dare I say, healing my ever maturing mind. It was a trip far more mind expanding to me, than any drug could ever have been and to this day, that song can pull me back to 1978 and make me feel just like I did that very first time hearing it in the library.

To be quite honest, junior high sucked for me. Yeah, for most of us I guess, but for one month in one class in 1978, junior high rocked! Literally! It opened my eyes and my ears and set the stage for me to love other groups such as Aerosmith, Judas Priest and Rush. Yes, all it took was More than a Feeling.....and a little rocker heart was born. A little secret???? That heart still rocks on today!

Happy Monday!