first love

Everyone has a story about their first love. A tale about that one boy or girl for whom that very first spark of interest and longing sent off shock waves of pleasure through the pitter-pat place located somewhere between the left and right atrium and is suspiciously left off all of the scientific notations. Mine was a girl named Holly. We had many an interaction on the bus to and from kindergarten. She lived down the block from me. She had red hair and heterochromia iridum. That's about all I can recall, which is really the trouble with firsts of this nature. I remember far more about the girl I married in the first grade. But I don't know if literal firsts like this really count. I am happily not a literal person, as those who truly know me can attest.

That said, honestly, my first true love was music. It's the early passion that counts and the one that truly had an impact. I was the only kid in my fourth grade class who had a music collection. I was the only one who knew from Jefferson Starship and Jefferson Airplane, who could tell you about the members of Fleetwood Mac, The Who, and Led Zeppelin. To keep things on balance, I was also the only kid bummed when Journey and Wham! broke up, and I owned the "Eye of the Tiger" single. I collected music anyway I could, whether it was buying tapes from Specs, Peaches, or Musicland, dubbing copies of records from the public library, or taping Casey Kasem off the radio. Movie soundtracks were always a good way to discover a cross-section of music one might not otherwise become exposed. I was rabid about music, to the point of losing the privilege of my music for a week because my mom caught me listening instead of going to school one late Tuesday morning.

I also used to play-pause-play, stop-play-rewind, et al to hear and write down lyrics to songs whose album's liner notes were left wanting. I also began writing my own songs at a young age. To me, I hit all the marks of a hit song: repetitive chorus, bridge, a couple of verses, guitar or drum solo. Long gone are my actual recordings of these hackneyed gems. Lip syncing and air guitar before patient friend's mothers, joining school band, and trying my hand at a few extracurricular instruments were all soon to follow.

I also spent some time drawing up entire album sleeves for fake acts whose greatest hits were many. A few years ago, these formative ideas returned to me upon taking the raw versions of these pics:

THEORETICAL ALBUM COVER:

THEORETICAL ALBUM BACK COVER:

iTunes, MP3 players, Pandora, Vh-1 classic, pop-up videos, satellite radio, karaoke, and Rock Band were created for people like me. Even though I am far more than a one trick pony, my trivia team always reserves the music categories for me. I have nearly 900 songs favorited on my iTunes, although it always seems small compared to my enthusiasm. For years I listened to hours of music collection informercials by Time Life and the like just to hear small snippets of many favorites and many forgotten ones. I am a sucker for music of varying genres. To me music needs no explanation, just the time to hear it. Music reminds people to love, to dance, to live. It condenses time and it passes the time.

Music is always on a constant shuffle in my life, to the point that my former father-in-law once wondered whether ever second of my life had a soundtrack. Certainly, I like the sounds of other things, the cacophony of life. I just think music conveys the best of them.