“Music is the soundtrack of your life.” Corny, right? The quote is usually attributed to Dick Clark, but it sounds like a phrase invented by a record company wanting to sell you yet another copy of Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits. Corny but not wrong. Even for non-music lovers, it’s impossible to escape the imprint of songs and musical passages on your memories and emotions.
Several aspects of your life have their own soundtracks, if you're listening. New romances and tough breakups, for sure. The births of my kids were accompanied by specific music that always takes me back to their arrival. Even your workplace can introduce music into your everyday life, as I was reminded a few years ago in a hellish time I think of as the Contemporary Country Music era. It’s been a while since I've worked there, but I will never watch The Voice, or any other TV show Blake Shelton is associated with and, to this day, hearing “Humble and Kind” makes me quiver and puke.
But I wanna talk about where I live. Neighborhoods have soundtracks, too. Music thumping from passing cars, playing on store overheads, heard on porches, or drifting out of open windows, even sung by the locals. Unless you choose the hermit life, or there’s something crazy like a pandemic going on, your everyday life is punctuated by the music you hear around you, and every neighborhood’s unique. Mine is a working middle-class part of the city with a wide range of ethnic diversity. Besides the obvious foodie advantages, that kind of neighborhood offers up some pretty interesting soundtrack moments, too. These are a few of my favorites, the first couple from the period when I was adjusting to not living in high crime areas anymore. Someplace a little less dramatic took some getting used to.
• In my earliest days in the neighborhood, back when I used to smoke, I would spend time sitting on my front steps in the evening, puffing away. My neighborhood is usually pretty quiet, especially on school and work nights, but every once in a while I would realize somebody was approaching on the sidewalk because I could hear them talking, even yelling, apparently to nobody (or maybe to or at me?). They weren't limited to any particular demographic, but were generally a lot younger than me. They’d pass me by, I’d reduce my personal threat level back to green, and the block would go quiet again. Didn’t happen every night, but often enough to make me wonder - wtf? It wasn’t until it happened during the day that I figured it out. These guys, and occasional gals, were wearing earbuds and flowing along to their favorite rap and hip-hop tracks while they strolled to wherever they were headed. From then on, my reaction went from slightly raised anxiety to delighted and I started to wave as they walked past. Most of the time I get a smile and wave in return, which is an amusing visual if they happen to be rapping hard thug-life stuff.
• Like I said, I’ve lived in some dodgy neighborhoods in my life, with high crime rates and visits from the occasional news crew. Maybe from watching too many crime shows on TV, or maybe from an instinct for self-preservation, I became a little wary of a certain type of vehicle. Oversize, black SUVs with tinted windows on all sides and spinning hubcaps, really loud, aggressive rap and hip-hop spewing out, with bass that would rattle my windows from a block or two away. I didn’t know for sure, but it seemed like these were the people in the neighborhood you didn’t want to antagonize, so I never went up to one to ask that the music be turned down after my bedtime, please. Once I moved to where I am now, I didn’t see them anymore. Not the kind of tricked-out vehicle I, or my neighbors could afford, for one thing.
But, on a sunny fall day a couple of years ago, I was out raking leaves in my front yard and a deep bass note hit me square in the chest, like being hit (I imagine) with a sack full of fertilizer. I looked down the block, and there it was, heading my way. Big, black, spinners, tinted windows, my previous neighborhood coming back to crash my new one’s party (if you can call raking leaves a party). As it got closer, I realized – I know that song! Cranked up to hearing-threat volume was Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work.” No 50cent or Tupac, two frequent performers in my former neighborhood’s soundtrack, it was a bona fide classic rock radio staple, and a pretty mellow one at that. I was grinning as it went past and the driver, who had his window down, grinned back and gave me a thumbs-up. I still don’t see that style of stereotyped vehicle around here much, but when I do, I’m hoping for more Steely Dan, or maybe some Fleetwood Mac.
• A typical Saturday night not long ago, watching college football, beer in hand. The TV’s fairly loud because I have, indeed, lost some of the frequencies I used to hear. I’ve never taken the warnings about listening to loud music seriously, so I think there’s a connection. I’m watching Somebody University vs. Whoever State, and I start to hear and feel this thump over the sound of the TV. I also notice that the panes in my window are vibrating a bit. I assumed it was somebody parked right outside the house, possibly on my lawn, jamming at high volume. I’m hoping for more Steely Dan, of course, but when I looked out the windows I didn’t see anybody on either street. I stepped out onto the porch and could tell the music was coming from an incredibly loud car stereo at the gas station a block away. There’s a full city block with a Taco Bell and Walgreens between me and that station, so my first reaction was to be impressed by the amp power required to rattle my windows from that distance. I love my music loud, but even I wondered how somebody could ride in that vehicle without going stone deaf. Then it hit me. The song that got me out of my chair and out the door was George Jones’ “These Days (I Barely Get By),” a classic country cry-in-your-beer weeper he wrote with Tammy Wynette way back in 1974. I planted my behind on the step to listen to rest of it, because you just don’t hear such a fabulous song in such an odd and incongruous setting every day. Sadly, there was still a verse or so to go when it pulled away from the pumps and drove off into the heart of Saturday night. I thought about my dad a lot the rest of that night. I’m not sure when, or if, I would have developed an interest in George’s music if he hadn’t been such a big fan of Hee Haw back in the day.
• There’s a guy about my age who lives halfway between me and the aforementioned Taco Bell. He does some kind of woodworking, cabinetry, I think, and for a long time worked in a wood shop at the back end of his property. There was a small loft above the machinery and sawdust where he had installed a big speaker that could be heard around the neighborhood. What did he listen to? Sermons and church music. And by church music, I don’t mean gospel music, the cool stuff with a beat and awesome call-and-response singing. I mean ancient-sounding Christian hymns, slow and dirge-like with massed voices, unchanged since the 16th century or so, with equally dreary organ accompaniment. I could hear it any day of the week he happened to be working, but he always turned the volume up on Sundays. I imagine he was trying to save the local heathens.
A couple of years ago, he added a giant, funky-looking addition (seriously, you should see this thing) to the top story of his house and moved the whole woodworking operation, including the giant speaker, indoors. I only hear the church music on warm summer days now when he opens up the shop’s oversized hinged windows while he works. A couple of months ago I was outside, his windows were open, and the church service started. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for him, he was working on a project that required the use of some kind of hydraulic-powered tool. A drill maybe, or power wrench, I’m not fully conversant in pneumatics. Anyway, it ran in short bursts at a time and sounded exactly like loud, noxious farts. The combination of the pious, god-fearing hymns, sonorous organ, and intermittent bursts of raucous gas passing made me laugh so hard I had to sit down. I flashed right back to being a little kid in the pew at Catholic mass, driven to giggling by the priest telling us one of the animals attending the birth of Jesus was an ass. I’m sure my neighbor had no clue what he was broadcasting, but I wanted to walk over and thank him for making my day.
EARWORM: “Dirty Work” (1972) – From their debut album, Can’t Buy a Thrill. One of a handful of hit singles they burst out of the gate with.
BONUS EARWORM: “These Days (I Barely Get By)” (1974) – George sure could sing. You’ll feel the despair in this one.
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