Early Musical Influences

A friend of mine asked “What were the ten songs/albums that were your earliest musical influences and why?”  It took some time to put together that list and here it is.  What were your’s?

 

The Beatles – Sgt Peppers

Actually Rubber Soul is my favorite Beatles album but Sgt Peppers really had a bigger impact on my young mind.  It was my parent’s record with the original paper badges insert (still have it).  A Day In the Life was the track that made my mind explode.  I can’t tell you why now but I remember it oh so clearly the first time it played.

 

The Miracles – Love Machine

The City of Angels was the first album I used my own money to purchase.  I still have it.  Somehow it managed to escape being smashed with all my other disco records when I turned to punk rock instead.

 

The Brothers Johnson – Strawberry Letter 23

I bought this 45 and played it to death.  It had a scratch and sniff cover that smelled like strawberries of course and looked like an envelope.

 

Wild Cherry – 99 ½

My introduction to funk from my neighbor, Lawrence.

 

KTEL – Greatest Hits of 1976

I still have this record!  I’m sure now why I loved it so much but I did.

 

The Who – Quadrophenia

Spoke so clearly to my early teen age angst and alienation.  I heard the album before the film came out.  I have the original with its multi-page picture booklet. 

 

The Selector – The Selector

My first ska album.  I loved Too Much Pressure and Carry, Go, Bring, Come.  I had no idea what they were talking about or that these songs were covers but this got me started.

 

Gang of Four – Entertainment

Lawrence told me to buy this.  I did and it is still one of my favorites.  Anthrax is my favorite song, funny as I am actually a hopeless romantic.  Or maybe I should say a romantic without hope?

 

Generation X – Generation X

This record came to my attention at age 16.  I was working at the local college radio station and flirting shamelessly with one of the DJs (Bus Riley).  I called in to his show one night and told me to play something for me, DJ’s choice – Kiss Me Deadly was his choice.  We ended up dating for almost a year!  The song still gets my heart jumping.

 

Peter Tosh – Wanted Dread or Alive

When I was 15 I had a radio slot on my high school station.  The instructor said there was a guy who was interested in sponsoring a reggae show and did I have any interest in taking the genre on.  I was game and ended up meeting weekly with this guy to learn about reggae and borrow records for the show.  He was a teenage counselor, white, with long blond dreads.  He took the time to teach me about reggae and although he didn’t want me to play songs with a pro-weed message he did play them for me.  “Nothing But Love� is still a favorite song from this period in my life.

Discarded

Discarded. Thrown in the corner of the closet. The fit, the smell, the feel is familiar and somehow comforting but not to be worn again. Why am I aching for the physical intimacy that was nothing more than a way to pass the time from the start? I didn’t want you to fall in love with me. But I liked being wanted.

Now you have a new suit and though you won’t say it, I can see in your eyes that you’re done with me. The loneliness never left even when I lay there in your arms but now it consumes me and I feel bitter. I don’t want to, but I do.

It will pass. This isn’t the first time a lover has turned me aside for another. You don’t even have to say that’s what is happening, I already know. It was bound to happen sooner or later. It hurts. I don’t want it to, but it does.

It gnaws at my insides. Why not me? I didn’t want you to fall in love with me, but why didn’t you? It’s not my heart that is hurt, it is my ego.  There is something wrong with me that I can be so easily replaced, so easily scorned, so thoughlessly discarded. Last season’s fashion, so out of style.