How We Listened

Now back in Hall with the girls safely returned to their homes, I've had a little more time to explore some of the musical spoils recently acquired. Played all the Emmylou albums today, and very glad I did.

But following on yesterday's post I got to wondering how it was I acquired a reasonably wide acquaintance with the world of popular music in rock, folk and jazz terms when I was a youth since I owned so few albums of my own, prices being prohibitively expensive and my pockets lacking depth. I can remember, for example, agonising over whether to buy Steely Dan's Aja, and actually feeling a bit disappointed at first listen when I did buy it and didn't really get what Becker and Fagin were up to. The answer to the question isn't, or wasn't, the radio, by the way. There wasn't that much variety in programming. No, you got to hear things by either borrowing other people's albums (that's how I first heard The Beatles' Sergeant Peppers) or listening when people played them (which is how I first heard The White Album in its entirety.)

There are two things implied here. First of all, a reminder of how generous your mates were. After all, there was real risk in lending a piece of fragile, easily scratchable vinyl to a goonish teen. And it meant you had to do without the particular work when it was on loan. Secondly, people, at least the ones I knew, really listened hard when music was played purposefully to be shared. Case in point: I can count myself a real expert on all the early Dan albums: Can't Buy A Thrill; Countdown to Ecstasy; Pretzel Logic, Katy Lied; The Royal Scam, singing along to all with reasonable accuracy regarding the lyrics, arcane as they so often were - and not printed for the first three - and I think I know pretty much every note played. Yet, I never owned any until they were issued on CD in the late 80's and I don't recall borrowing them. They were simply there, in the air. A great band, and you just had to listen. Hard.