Last week, one of my neighbors (smiling broadly) said "Boy, you really do love your music, don't you?" When I asked if it was too loud, he replied "No, but I really enjoyed your duet with James Brown." There is NO WAY I can hear James singing "I FEEL GOOD" without dropping everything and losing myself in the song. Right down to the very last ".....HEY!!"
I should have been embarrassed but I wasn't. It wasn't the first time it happened...
One summer morning in 1957, I was outside playing with my friends when our new (and newlywed) neighbor stopped and said "So you like that new song by the Everly Brothers!" I looked at him questioningly, forgetting that our bathroom windows were side by side. He then said "I hear you singing it in the shower every night!" I turned as red as my little portable radio (forever by my side) as he laughed and walked away.
And I'm still singing, everywhere I go ~ I hear a Motown song and I am gone baby, singing AND dancing, supermarkets, laundromats, you name it. I can't help it, something just leaps in my soul and makes my feet happy. Most people smile in agreement (or think I'm nuts, but who cares?)
I always loved music so to be smack dab in the middle of the birth of rock & roll was really something special. I had a healthy respect for the Big Bands, jazz, and early 50s popular music (a bit treacly but okay for the moment) but the first time I heard "ONE-TWO-THREE O'CLOCK-FOUR O'CLOCK-ROCK..." I stopped in my tracks and said "What is this?? I LOVE it!"
I credit my father for this love...we always had the kitchen radio tuned into WNEW-AM, so I was exposed to music early and intelligently. He wasn't thrilled when I defected to rock & roll but I took all of it with me and still love hearing any song from the 1930s-40s-50s and beyond. Songs are like memory markers that instantaneously recreate a time and place, they're little time machines!
Music is truly the background of our lives. Without it, and animals, this would be a dreary world indeed.
And now, put on your dancing shoes 'cause we're gonna DANCE!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5TqIdff_DQ
