Item: 1 CD - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, by Bruce Springsteen (Part II)
I think we all know that a piece of music can take a person back to another time. Sometimes that's for obvious reasons, like when a piece of music has a strong association with that time, and other times there is no clear explanation for it other than the song's ability to evoke the feeling of that time.
Listening to this album brings me back to the time period of being 8-10 years old, particularly the experience of playing in the backyard in the early evenings, imagining myself as part of various historical stages. The reasons for this connection are mixed, and probably include but are not limited to these:
o The pictures on the album cover and liner notes all have a sort of dusky gold light to them, which is exactly the atmosphere I pictured myself tramping through on the frontier.
o In 4th or 5th grade I was being taught to sing "Pay Me My Money Down" in school, by a music teacher named Mr. Grandy who accompanied us on the autoharp. I think we were doing a calypso version, and it was fun.
o By this point in life I had read all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, in which Pa played "Old Dan Tucker" on the fiddle, in which a tune rollicked in a room where people might dance on a creaky wooden floor, and where the outside air leaked in.
o I understood, or didn't understand, that whatever of the frontier was left in the evening grass and air, whatever irresistible roughness I was trying to touch, would get farther and farther away.
And then there is the combination of all of these with Bruce Springsteen's voice, which sounds as though he might also have lived a time with one foot in history, like he might have been there, playing in the yard with me.
Listening to this album brings me back to the time period of being 8-10 years old, particularly the experience of playing in the backyard in the early evenings, imagining myself as part of various historical stages. The reasons for this connection are mixed, and probably include but are not limited to these:
o The pictures on the album cover and liner notes all have a sort of dusky gold light to them, which is exactly the atmosphere I pictured myself tramping through on the frontier.
o In 4th or 5th grade I was being taught to sing "Pay Me My Money Down" in school, by a music teacher named Mr. Grandy who accompanied us on the autoharp. I think we were doing a calypso version, and it was fun.
o By this point in life I had read all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, in which Pa played "Old Dan Tucker" on the fiddle, in which a tune rollicked in a room where people might dance on a creaky wooden floor, and where the outside air leaked in.
o I understood, or didn't understand, that whatever of the frontier was left in the evening grass and air, whatever irresistible roughness I was trying to touch, would get farther and farther away.
And then there is the combination of all of these with Bruce Springsteen's voice, which sounds as though he might also have lived a time with one foot in history, like he might have been there, playing in the yard with me.
posted by Karen at 6:45 PM
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