“I believe that appreciation is a holy thing, that when we look for what’s best in the person we happen to be with at the moment, we’re doing what God does; so in appreciating our neighbor, we’re participating in something truly sacred.” –
-Mr. Rogers
Influential IX
Continuing a series recalling the ten most life and literary influencing albums in my collection–in no particular order. Although I’ve gotten to this album at Roman numeral IX … were they prioritized, this album would rightfully be number ONE. I’d further assert, THIS ALBUM should be numero uno on everyone’s list. You there! Get to the store! Buy it! Listen to it! THIS ONE will change your life!
How’s that for a run up?
Post Nine of Ten
Born To Run: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
This album dropped in 1975. But it wasn’t until 1982 that I discovered it. Thanks to a Jersey-girl named Gina Nardone. 
Gina was a pizza chef at Don Ciccio’s Big Cheese (sort of like a poor man’s Chuck E. Cheese restaurant) where I was … The Big Cheese. Think I’m kidding? I’ll offer photo proof below. Look how proud Mom was in this picture. Her son had made it to the top!
“You don’t like The Boss?” Gina said, incredulously? “He can’t sing!” I argued. “You don’t listen to The Boss for his singing voice,” she protested. “You listen to Bruce for the story.”
And that, my friends, is probably the best piece of life advice I’ve ever received.
Over the years, Bruce’s gravely voice has grown on me. And that band–“You’ve just witnessed the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, love-making, earth-quaking, Viagra-taking, justifying, death-defying, legendary E STREET BAND!”–is, in my humble opinion, the best live band in the world. But it is Bruce’s storytelling that initially caught my attention and has been a go-to escape ever since.
Gina handed me a copy of Born To Run one day at the pizzeria, “I dare you to really give this a listen and come back here and tell me you’re not a fan.”
The album opens with Thunder Road. I saw the screen door slam. I saw Mary’s dress sway. I was there, from the very first few notes, watching the story unfold. I smirked at the line, “You ain’t a beauty but, eh, you’re alright.” Brutally honest.
I was drawn into the action. I cheered Tenth Avenue Freeze Out’s announcement that they’d “made the change uptown and the Big Man joined the band.” I felt the tension of all the teenage and young adult angst, of trying to find your way in the world. It was real. I was living it, too.
I flipped the album over–and my life would never be the same.
Cars, girls, an (underage) sip of warm beer in the soft summer rain–all of the components of my own coming of age saga–and the illusive promise of a bright future became the soundtrack of my life from the ages of fifteen to … today.
Someday girl I don’t know when we’re going to get to that place where we really want to go and we’ll walk in the sun … But until then tramps like us, baby we were born to run
Gina was right. I was a fan. THEN … I heard Jungleland.
If you haven’t … you must. The story is as heartbreaking a teenage love story as exists anywhere. There are parts of the story, I dare say, we all can relate to. And if the story doesn’t stir you deep, The Big Man’s nearly three-minute long sax solo will. Best three-minutes in rock-n-roll history, I tell you.
I credit three major contributions to my wanting to become a writer: (1) Mom instilled the treasure of stories and storytelling in our family. (2) My sister Diann gave me a copy of Shel Silverstein’s Where The Sidewalk Ends when I was ten years old. And (3), Gina Nardone handed me a copy of Born To Run when I was fifteen.
Springsteen is THE BOSS. Take it from … The Big Cheese.
FMM
Five Minute Memoir quip #431
I’m wondering … How often do you suppose we unintentionally become the a$$- – – in someone else’s story?
I was on the beach yesterday as the tide was coming in. My wife and I had to move our chairs and all our gear back several yards to avoid being washed out to sea. Then we noticed, off to our right, someone’s towel. The rising tide was closing in. My wife and I discussed, “Should we go move that stranger’s towel back?” We wondered aloud about the risks–would someone see us touching their stuff and be angered? We did the obligatory look around–we saw no one who might have owned this towel. We considered that it may have been abandoned or accidentally left behind. Just then a wave reached the towel–not enough to carry it away, just enough to dampen the edges. It wouldn’t be long, though. What should we do?
Just then a man came running up from far away. He’d been swimming and the current had obviously taken him way down range of his towel. He bent down, scooped it up … and shot an incredulous look at us. You know what that look said to me? You got it.
So today he’s telling that story to others. “And there were these a$$- – -s sitting right there next to my towel and …”
Influential VIII
I just recently wrote about the perks of the writing life including that I can work anywhere, anytime. Another is that my writing life is filled with music. As I type this post, I’m sitting on Cocoa Beach (How does the song go? Got my toes in the water, ass in the sand …?) And I’m listening to music from one of the ten most influential albums in my life. And I’m smiling because I know this one is not on any of your shelves!
Post Eight of Ten
Mission Mountain Wood Band: In Without Knocking
I’ve already given a nod to my older siblings in this series–much of the music on my top ten list came through their musical tastes as I was a child. This one calls for another hat-tip to my oldest brother Dave.
Dave has taught me many life lessons. An appreciation for music in all its different forms and genres is on that list. And that started when my rock-n-roll loving big brother pulled me aside at a family function when I was about ten-years-old, put on this hillbilly bluegrass album he’d found and said, “You gotta hear this!”
The song was Sweet Maria, Never Long Gone. Everything about this song was a shock to my system.
Banjo picking and harmonica into. Bass dropping in after eight bars–one, three, one, three, one, three (you know that pattern). Then the vocal–a great singer. And the lyric got me. Story. The man was in Athens county … and doin’ fine. Oh, and Maria was there. And she was … sweet. Life was … sweet.
The lyrics take listeners on a road trip. We encounter the singer’s good friend Sal. We sip some wine together. We’re all doing fine. I wanted to be there. I wanted to be where people lived life at this pace, forsaking life’s rat-race. Do you know what I mean?
All the band’s instrumental solo breaks are fantastic. Whether a guitar, a banjo, a harmonica, a mandolin, a fiddle–it’s just all soul-stirring, foot tapping fun.
And then the harmonies! Oh my! And this really was the MMWB (or M2WB) claim to fame. The harmonies are so tight, and even at times purposefully discordant in a way that makes you wonder, “What was that?”
You don’t understand what I mean? Skip to the last song on the album, and a MMWB classic, (Pickin’ Our Song in) Mountain Standard Time. You’ll hear it. And what a party it becomes.
You know where, I don’t care, set your lady in a rockin’ chair, fiddles flying, playing all night ’til daylight, Mountain Time …
So ten-year-old me is digging MMWB. Then my big brother says, “Oh, and you gotta hear this!” He plays a track called Take a Whiff On Me. Being as I was only ten and still unaware of many of the ills in the world, he didn’t bother telling me the song is a huge drug euphemism. I just thought it suggested … I don’t know, maybe after all those nights of fiddling and dancing … body odor, or something. Ten year old boys–stink–seemed to work.
Take a whiff, take a whiff, take a whiff on me! Everybody take a whiff on me! Hey, hey, darlin’ take a whiff on me!
We’re digging the tune, giggling about it and then comes the last chorus where, instead of saying the word whiff, the singer actually whiffs–takes a huge whiffing inhale–and we both busted out laughing! Roaring! That was funny! You’d have to hear it to get the effect.
This music was story. It was fun. It was light-hearted. It was obvious these guys didn’t take themselves too seriously. And that was attractive. It is attractive.
I lost track of my copy of MMWB’s In Without Knocking years ago. Hadn’t heard it in decades. Been YouTubing MMWB and reminiscing (the only place you can find their stuff today in on YouTube or through the band’s official website).
As I think back on the records that served as soundtrack to my growing up and those that influenced my love for life and story–this one played a powerful role.
Do yourself a favor. Take a break from all the BS and busyness sometime soon. Google up some MMWB. Pick-it in Mountain Standard Time for a spell. You’ll see what I mean. What a hoot!
Influential VII
By this point I can forego the lengthy introduction of this series of posts. You get it. If not, look through older posts and you’ll discover a pattern. You’re sharp, that way. In no particular order, here is–
Post Seven of Ten
It was the size of a suitcase. Dad somehow managed to get it wedged into the car–between whichever of his kids happened to be fortunate enough to straddle it the next few hours down the road. It was an honor you wanted to decline but couldn’t.
This edition of most influential albums from my childhood and youth takes us way back. This window in my lifetime encompasses just about the entire decade of the seventies. My dad’s prized musical possession was a set of twelve 8-track tapes: Classic Country Gold.
I’ll just put this out there: I’m not a fan of country music. Every now and then I’ve heard a country song or artist that caught my fancy … for a moment. Then, gone. Over it. Thankfully. But this recollection is of how Dad’s Classic Country Gold collection left an indelible impression on my heart and my storytelling/writing life.
Country music–like no other genre–is story.
So Dad’s set–these dozen 8-tracks, in their suitcase, taking up a whole seat in the car–was the soundtrack of every road trip and vacation I (we–all us kids) took with Mom and Dad in our growin’ years. The storytelling cowboys, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Hank Williams; the outlaws Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, George Jones; the country crooners, Eddie Arnold, Roger Miller, Marty Robbins; and the original dixie chicks Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn–they, and dozens of other classic country singer/songwriters covering the decades of the 40s, 50s, 60s and early 70s serenaded us, non-stop.
What an impression these artists and their stories made on me! And it was pure country gold–
Trailer for sale or rent, rooms to let, fifty cents.
No phone, no pool, no pets, I ain’t got no cigarettes
Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room
I’m a man of means by no means, king of the road.
And gritty with reality–
I was born one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine
i picked up my shovel and i walked to the mine
i loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
and the straw boss said “well, a-bless my soul”
you load sixteen tons, what do you get?
another day older and deeper in debt
saint peter don’t you call me ’cause i can’t go
i owe my soul to the company store
Occasionally drawing a pre-adolescent giggle–
Hey, hey, good lookin’,
Whatcha got cookin’?
How’s about cookin’ somethin’ up with me?
Hey, sweet baby,
Don’t you think maybe
We could find us a brand new recipe?
Here’s the connection: All those long car rides spent listening to Dad’s Classic Country Gold AND MORE SPECIFICALLY the stories those old guitar pickin’ cow-folk shared enlarged my imagination. I found myself in their tales. They were the unplanned soundtrack to much of my imagination’s formative years. These are songs and artists I haven’t listened to in four decades, but I bet you I could sing along with any one of them, still.
One more thing. Have you ever had that experience where a song comes on the radio and immediately transports you back to a time and place long ago? These old country songs take me back to vacations. I hear them and I remember stopping with my family at rest-stops, picnic lunches by the side of the road, camping, swimming, swinging on rope swings … oh, and straddling the big ol’ honking 8-track suitcase.
DARIN MICHAEL SHAW 