Striking Chords With Our Mentors Through Music

We all see and hear different perspectives and views

If you ever made me a mix tape, I probably remember some of the songs on it, but the odds of me still possessing it are slim. Today, it’s fairly easy to throw a playlist together and send it to someone who may or may not listen to it, but old school mix tapes required some logistics and planning. They invited me to listen to them, and I’m sure that’s why they’ve lasted so long in my heart – because you really had to be intentional about making it happen!

Today, we only have to think of the songs we want, choose the desired order, and then basically let technology take over. Which is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but makes me a little nostalgic for the frenzy of energy that came with jumping over the couch to hit the record button as the first few notes of a song you wanted on your tape began to play on the radio. I’m suddenly transported back to my preteen living room, breathing a sigh of relief because I captured another coveted song.  Yes, simple joys!

Most of my mix tapes were missing the first few notes of each song for that very reason, but there was also a DIY charm to them that made each one special and unique. Note: I love my mix CDs almost as much, but since they were so much easier to create, they only get this long-sentenced nod right here: an honorable mention. Every one of these collections of songs (cassette and CD) ties me to people who have been important in my life. In my small world, sharing music has always been an easy point of connection with others, and its ongoing influences are woven into my most vivid memories. I love to think back on how I was introduced to specific artists, and especially what drew me to them at the time, because it helps me remember the diverse roads I have traveled  – and that most of them are still under construction! 

 As I study my own personal soundtrack (the songs that grabbed me somehow, some way), I’ve noticed that it’s not always the music itself that stays with me. Very often, the song simply ties me to the emotional landscape I was navigating at the time I heard it. I find this completely fascinating from a personal history and memory-prompting standpoint. As human beings, we are all dealing within the arena of our own personal mindset, but there is also the climate of our immediate environment to contend with. We often feel powerless to affect it (to be fair, we are frequently told we can’t), but something within the vibrational chords of music has always made me feel like we actually could – any and all of us. Maybe not in the here and now exactly, but somewhere down the road… That idea keeps me going whenever I feel ineffective, and nudges me back to my own creativity.

There are certain songs/albums that I only liked because of a single moment that happened when I heard them. Or someone put them on a mixtape. They don’t necessarily reflect who I am the way some treasured songs do, but they help tell the story of where I have been at certain moments in my life. Case in point: Eric Clapton’s 1989 album, Journeyman. It was an epic album for my unchecked soul/ego balance, at the time. I first heard it somewhere around my daughter’s first birthday, and it played on repeat for months. I remember feeling like it spoke to my role as an adult. Clapton’s loss and regret became things I could learn from as each note, word, and turn of phrase became familiar to my ear and lit up my psyche. I had been a mother and a wife for nearly a year, but I’m not sure I understood the concept of adult responsibilities. Pondering it all now, perhaps I still don’t. Honestly.

Clapton released Journeyman two years before he would tragically lose his son, Conor. I was devastated by the news in a way that felt much more personal than I would have anticipated. The effects of Journeyman were still fresh, and it seemed like I could somehow feel his pain, directly, if I thought about it for too long. I remember thinking that my own child was the age Conor was when Journeyman was being written, and it was practically impossible to imagine losing her at any age. It might have been the first time I considered something so awful, and ultimately, letting those feelings play out gave me a valuable perspective. I was able to see those thoughts as a waste of my good energy. I acknowledge that the fear is 100% real, and it doesn’t really disappear. It can, however, co-exist with everything else we strive to balance in our lives.

Freak accidents occur. No matter how intentionally careful anyone is, certain things happen that can’t be prevented. They can defy the logic that we all find ourselves fighting: the notion that “this isn’t fair!” vs. “oh yeah, life isn’t fair…”. This is the hardest part of parenting (and perhaps adulting, too). Allowing those feelings to flow freely around us, while remaining connected to the idea that we are living in a safe and secure world where unexpected things come up randomly. When we allow that truth, we see that any time we spend in worry and fear can easily be moved into the space of the ideal playground - imagining creative solutions for the problems we encounter every day. Freak accidents also inspire great music. Remember when Keith Richards woke up to learn that he had written and recorded “Satisfaction”? So cool! Even though the memory lapse was likely drug-induced.

I would not call myself an Eric Clapton fan, but I must list him as a musical mentor, no doubt. His “Wonderful Tonight” showed up at the end of a very special mixtape in high school, but it was learning about the meaning of “Cocaine” that would infuse this strange jolt of realism that would spark my initial interest in the cause and healing of addiction. This interest continues to consume my thoughts today, and I like to think of creative ways to release people from their most traumatic triggers. Shame, alone, can be enough to make people unwilling to face those root feelings, and song lyrics have a way of naturally leading us in and out of deeper meaning and understanding. Eric Clapton’s addiction was an organic catalyst for me, so even though I’ve never been focused on him, his peripheral presence has taught me a lot, starting in the church parking lot across the street from my childhood home:

I was riding my bike in circles, singing the lyrics loud enough for my dad to hear me. He asked if I knew what the song was about and when I didn’t, he loosely spelled it out for me (without implicating himself, I might add). He brought Jackson Browne and James Taylor into the conversation about drug struggles, and I remember taking it all in like a fairy tale. I was maybe 11, and all of a sudden, the entire adult world looked different to me. Clips of the acid scenes from the movie Hair are playing in my mind as I write this, so I’m sure that soundtrack is entwined with these beliefs. Maybe Alice in Wonderland and Fantasia, too. It’s all so connected.

Recently, I have been meditating with whole albums – original order, start to finish, eyes closed, no interruptions. It started with Dark Side of the Moon, the day my dad died. We left his hospital room, went to Winstead’s as a family, and then we all went home. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I walked in, turned on that album, and let it take me away to another space and time for 42 minutes. It was one of my Dad’s favorites, and he had just taken his last breath to the song “Time” a few hours earlier. It felt cathartic and connected, and it was exactly what I needed at that moment. It started me on a fun tour of combining old albums with meditation. Pink Floyd, Queen, and Led Zeppelin (my dad famously hated them, btw) have been the most transformative for me so far. 

It got me thinking. About the meaning of life, ‘common’ education, our individual journeys, and this train of thought eventually brought me back to the memories of the songs from my favorite mixtapes. Earlier this summer, I tried a meditation with Journeyman, and it didn’t hit me the same way at all. The music felt very discordant (that’s my own eighties bias that I’m still working through), but once I was able to breathe through that part, I could feel my 21 year old self lurking in the lyrics. Cringy, but oh so real – can’t hide from it - and don’t even want to anymore! 

The first lyrics of the first song still speak to me, and I appreciate the way he started our collective journey through the songs on this album:

“How many times must we tell the tale?

How many times must we fall?

Living in lost memories 

we just recalled…”  

Clapton, Eric. “Pretending”, Journeyman, 1989.

The answer is almost always: more than we think. The questions continue to form and seek additional answers because we each experience the same things in different ways at different times. Mix tapes evoke those kinds of questions. Why was this song chosen and what does it mean to the person who offered it as a gift? If we ask, we learn the answers. If we don’t, we are left to wonder. And both of those journeys bring their own rewards and challenges. My point, if there is one, is to allow everything around us to evolve and grow before us, so that we can appreciate our own personal journey for exactly what it is: a big, beautiful mix of different influences. So let the music play…