Music has been a continual focus and backdrop in my life ever since those first accordion lessons back in the mid-1960s and the acquisition of a hand-sized transistor radio (as opposed to a radio with vacuum tubes). Of the many songs I’ve heard and enjoyed over the years, some have extra special meanings, each capable of bringing back specific memories or feelings from a certain time period or an experience, much like smells can accurately conjure up recollections in the smallest details; I’ll envision scenes and can sometimes recall what my thoughts were, my worries, frustrations, and what brought joy, inspiration, or sadness. So I thought it would be interesting to create an annotated list of these songs. But realizing that listing hundreds of songs and explanations of why each is important to me would be impractical and probably boring, I decided to whittle the list down to ten, for no other reason than humans have ten fingers.
The list would consist of only songs that I have considered essential, but essential only for myself, as someone else would probably develop a completely different list. They would not necessarily be the best I have ever heard, just the ten that I would never want to do without. Or, if I had music playing at my funeral, these would be the ten songs playing in the background (although, I might make an exception to the limit of ten and add Rock of Ages and Amazing Grace). Each song would have to fit several criteria: strong ties to personal meanings or experiences, compelling story and/or emotion, clear mental images, instrumentation, overall sound, and tune. I tried to weigh all of these factors in deciding which songs to include. In doing so, I had to leave off some truly great music.
But this necessarily begs the question of why anyone, other than my wife Julie, would care about any of this? If I were famous or influential, there would likely be widespread interest in the minutia of my life. And yet, I still have likes, dislikes, and opinions. So for what it’s worth, I made the list anyway, even if it matters to no one else. The songs are not listed in order of importance (such as the best being first), but rather, they are listed in terms of where they fit into the chronology of my life, from the high school years in the 1970s up through recent times.
Ten Essential Songs
Sunday Morning Coming Down (Kris Kristofferson). This song brings me back to my high school years, to a time when I first truly latched onto the type of music that moved me. And it was the lyrics that did it. Although certain songs, like The Weight by The Band, stood out for years, it was when I discovered artists like Kris Kristofferson and paid closer attention to Johnny Cash’s music that I really began to relate to the music in a personal way. Kristofferson’s lines about waking up on a Sunday morning, fumbling through his closet for the cleanest dirty shirt, and then stumbling down the stairs for a walk alone through a city park appealed to my sense of being an outsider. In high school, I never belonged to a popular clique, didn’t attend sporting events, didn’t belong to clubs or the band, and had few close friends. I was also drawn to songs with more mature themes than the average teenager probably would have been, although it would be years before I would try a beer for breakfast, let alone having a second beer for dessert. (Link to YouTube Sunday Morning Coming Down)
Big River (Johnny Cash). This is definitely not a kid’s type of song. It’s about a man trying to track down his wayward girlfriend along the Mississippi River. The song is full of river scenes that made me want to be just about any place other than in high school, especially not in a gym class surrounded by a bunch of kids yelling and throwing a ball around. One friend of mine kind of liked Johnny Cash, but other than that friend, my new musical tastes set me apart. When music was a topic of discussion with other high schoolers, names like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Aerosmith were bandied about with pride, but mentioning Johnny Cash as a favorite never came up…except by me, and that was usually followed by some strange looks and sometimes laughter. I saw musical preference as just a simple matter of what sounds good to the particular individual and what strikes a chord because of personal meanings. But in high school, the music you listened to took on much more importance; it was a kind of status symbol to some, and it had to be the same as what was popular with others. I could never see their point. (Link to YouTube Big River)
Boots of Spanish Leather (Bob Dylan). Part of my sadness in high school and the reason why the mood of songs like Sunday Morning Coming Down appealed to me was the lack of a girlfriend and the real feeling that it could never happen. Being easily intimidated by the opposite sex and then turning into a bumbling, stammering fool while asking for a date didn’t help.
At any rate, after hearing Bob Dylan’s song Watching the River Flow in 1971, I became an instant Dylan follower, and I soon became familiar with most of his music. Some of his lyrics were and still are difficult to follow (for example, Desolation Row), but Boots of Spanish Leather really tugged at my heart for its story of a lost love sailing away across the ocean, unlikely to return for a long time, and the reluctant acceptance of that fact. I may not have had a girlfriend to lose, but over the high school years there were several females, the objects of my pathetic infatuations, who ignored me completely (to clarify, however, a girl once actually did notice me walking down the sidewalk when she yelled out her open window, “Hey Tommy, you walk like a deadbeat”—mentioned here just to keep the record straight). So I imagined that unrequited love, which I had a lot of experience with, and being dumped must have felt about the same, which is why Boots of Spanish Leather resonated. Nanci Griffith’s version of this song is the best. (Link to YouTube Boots of Spanish Leather)
Paradise (John Prine). I wrote about this song at length in a recent blog post called “Paradise over the Years.” Here is a link to that post: Paradise over the Years. (Link to YouTube Paradise)
Homecoming (Tom T. Hall). I was born in Buffalo, New York, and lived there just past the toddler stage when my parents divorced. My mother, brother, and I then moved to Chicago to live with my maternal grandparents. Although dad soon followed us to Chicago, my parents never reconciled. Seeing dad was then referred to as a “visitation,” only on Sunday, from eleven o’clock in the morning until precisely five-thirty in the afternoon. This pattern was by decree until I turned eighteen, but continued well into my early twenties, until I left home for college. After that, I saw my dad less often. When I moved further away from Chicago, visits were down to about twice a year. At the time, I never thought about the sacrifices he went through because of the divorce or that he left a good job, his hometown, and his close family network in Buffalo so that he could be near his sons (my mother has always painted a highly negative picture of him, which continues to the present day, even though he died in 2009). Soon I became pre-occupied with my own life, and never much considered his struggles or went too far out of my way to see him more often. My view was that offspring move out and away; parents stay behind; and all go on about their lives, demanding little from each other. Tom T. Hall’s song Homecoming is right on target as it illustrates a son’s regret—in the end, however, easily pushed aside—at being neglectful of his aging father. (Link to YouTube Homecoming)
The Orchard (Kevin Evans). A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about my longtime fascination with Irish folk music. Here is a link to that post: The Highlands. (Link to YouTube The Orchard)
Oh, Abraham (John Gorka). Well before Julie and I were married, she introduced me to the music of John Gorka, encouraging me to listen to his CD, The Company You Keep. It’s an overall excellent album, but the song Oh, Abraham stands out. It is a serious, complex song, but also has some of Gorka’s unique humor here and there. In my interpretation, the song is a commentary on our society: its inequities, the growing partisan divide in our country, and the question of whether or not the original dream of the country’s founders has been lost. The song reminds me of a well-crafted literary essay, of the type that invokes deep thought; may be a bit difficult to truly define; and at the same time, is relevant in a variety of situations. And, with every listen, it makes me think of Julie. (Link to YouTube Oh, Abraham)
Long Way (Antje Duvekot). Antje Duvekot is another Julie-inspired addition to my music library. Early in our marriage, I was frequently listening to the Irish folk band, Solas, which I had only just discovered. On their live album, Reunion: A Decade of Solas, Duvekot joined the band on stage when they played one of her songs. Julie picked out Antje Duvekot’s voice from the crowded stage and encouraged me to listen more closely; she was simply drawn to Duvekot’s voice and stage presence, but it was also a good song (Reasonland), with abstract lyrics reminiscent of Dylan. The following year, we attended Duvekot’s concert at Macomb’s Tri States Public Radio station, where I first heard Long Way. Later, while listening to John Gorka’s Oh, Abraham, I picked up on what I thought was a connection to Long Way; and then I remembered that at the radio concert, Duvekot mentioned her admiration for John Gorka. So there might be a connection. Both songs mention Jack Kerouac, and both are about traveling around the country—although Oh, Abraham is less about that. Long Way is essentially about the freedom of the road and being young without serious responsibilities. The song speaks directly to the wanderlust that I felt so strongly when I was younger, and so it makes me feel young again. (Link to YouTube Long Way)
Firefly (Edward David Anderson). I came upon this song during the pandemic year of 2020. Julie and I were in the process of selling our country home in Mason County and moving to the small western Illinois town of Macomb. Upon learning the names of the prospective buyers, Kim and Ed Anderson, we naturally looked them up on Facebook. We saw that Ed was a well-established, working musician with several CDs, YouTube videos, and an extensive touring resume as a solo performer and with a band called Backyard Tire Fire. I liked the idea of our old house being occupied by another musician (Ed calls it his “new old house”). In his song Firefly, I recognized several parallels to my own life during my early twenties: being directionless; not yet meeting the one special woman that would be my wife and feeling hopeless on that topic; and making my own way, not bending to convention or to what others were telling me I should do. I could have really used this song back in 1977, when I was depressed, going nowhere, and working at a dirty paper warehouse. (Link to YouTube Firefly)
Pachelbel’s Canon in D (Johann Pachelbel). This tune stands apart from all the others on the list because it is an instrumental. So its meaning to me is purely from the circumstances surrounding it rather than a personal connection that could be made by anyone relating to lyrics. When Julie handed me a list of songs to put together as a playlist for my stepdaughter Kate’s wedding in 2019, Pachelbel’s Canon was on the list. But being only familiar with the tune and not its name, I did not recognize it as a song that I knew until playing the mp3 download as a test. I also didn’t realize that it is well known and very popular at weddings. In the world of classical music, I am still fairly ignorant. So I try not to embarrass Julie, like the time we attended the Illinois Symphony, and I said, loud enough for others to hear, “Do they really need this guy waving his arms all over the place?” referring to the conductor. “I mean, all the musicians have the music in front of them, and they’ve all probably practiced it hundreds of times.” A woman sitting to Julie’s left leaned forward, and she and Julie gave me “a look.” I pretty much remained quiet for the rest of the evening. (Link to YouTube Pachelbel's Canon in D)
So, will this list of ten essential songs change as time goes on? Probably, as long as I decide to restrict the list to ten. I’m always searching for new music, and one day there might be a song that makes such a strong personal connection that I’ll have to bump one of the current ten off the list. But I guess it really doesn’t matter.