I
grew-up in a 1950's neighborhood in Lincoln, Nebraska called Eastridge.
Our
house had a basement with a recreation room (more commonly called
the rec room). We had shuffleboard "triangles" inlaid
into the tiled basement floor and it provided occasional entertainment.
But the real fun was up the street at the Keister's.
There
were three Keister boys and their ages were within five years of
each other so it was easy for me to knock on their door and find
someone to play with. It was the 1960's and you would play with
friends, not hang out with friends.
Over
the years we ate alot of Valentino's pizza (2)
in the Keister rec room while we played pool and cards and board
games.
We
also played the phonograph...alot.
The
Keister rec room could have been accurately called "the social
center of the dateless" since most activities were a guy thing.
But we had fun with one of my distinct memories being the sound
of 45 RPM records playing on the RCA Victor record player that sat
in the corner of the room.
Dave
was the oldest Keister brother and he loved Doris Day and Petula
Clark. I can still hear him playing his 45 RPM of Downtown.
Doug
was the middle son and he also had a 45 RPM record of Downtown.
However, his was an Italian version of Downtown and playing
that record always seemed to irritate Dave...which is obviously
why Doug liked to play it.
Doug's
bedroom was in the basement where he had built what you would have
to call a monster sound system. He called it "The
Machine." The speakers were Voice of the Theatre,15
inch cones inside two huge speaker cabinets. Doug had made a large
control panel with switches and meters and lights and the whole
thing dominated the room.
The
Control Panel, circa 1966
We
use to kid Doug about that control panel because it seemed like most
of the buttons and lights didn't do anything. I also don't remember
the sound being as great as its size but he could crank it up, much
to the displeasure of his parents. The Yardbirds' I'm a Man
was always turned all the way up by Doug at the end of the song.
I
can still hear Mrs. Keister yelling down the staircase "Turn
down that music!"
Kim
was closest to my age and he had a quite a few 33 1/3 LPs (e.g., The
Association, Beatles, Beach Boys, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass,
etc.) and he played them on his Harman Kardon component stereo system
(the purchase of which is documented in Kim's FOTP
Memory of the Phonograph).
Reading
Look magazine and listening to Kim's Harman Kardon with Dave
Clark Headphones, circa 1966.
All
in all there was a variety of music heard in that basement: "de
gustibus non est disputandum" as the Romans would say (there's
no accounting for taste). (3)
But
if I was to name one song that I connect with those record playing
days it has to be the 45 RPM Red River Rock by Johnny and the
Hurricanes.
It's
a record that was played over and over, which may be one way to explain
how it's still embedded in my memory.
"You been playing
that SAME record ALL DAY!" Harvey, October
1970
"You kids musta
played that noisy record a million times!!" Kathy, August
1961
That
embedded sticking of a tune, often called an "earworm,"
however doesn't have to be based on the number of times you hear a
song. Connections we make with certain songs can have many sources.
"Some one fed him
a phonograph record and now the tune keeps running through his
head." - Cartoon by T.
S. Sullivant, Life magazine 1924
Greeting Card, ©Hallmark,
c.2000
Television and radio
show theme songs are another source for 'tunes' getting stuck in heads.
Decades can pass and a few bars from the "William Tell Overture"
by Gioachino Rossini for many bring up memories of "The Lone
Ranger."
Frazz byy Jef Mallett,
The Lincoln Journal, April 22, 2024.
For
couples a song can be given special status, an Our
Song. This designation usually has romantic connotations but anyone,
like Archie's pal Jughead, can have a song that triggers memories
and can be called a "My Song."
The World of Jughead,
1963
Even with a loss of memory music
can still be remembered. Dr. Oliver Sacks writes in his book Musicophilia,
that “musical perception, musical sensibility, musical emotion and
musical memory can survive long after other forms of memory have
disappeared...Familiar music acts as a sort of Proustian mnemonic,
eliciting emotions and associations that had been long forgotten,
giving the patient access once again to mood and memories, thoughts
and worlds that had seemingly been completely lost.”
We
were a group of teen-age boys in the 1960's and Red River Rock
was just one of the records we played but hearing it decades later
still takes me
back to the Keister basement.
I
don't call Red River Rock a My Song or an Our Song
since there has been no co-designation about its significance. A
better term for me is to call it one of my "Time Travel Songs".
I'm
sure most people have many of those songs.
The Our Song Phenomenon - A Phonograph Recollection was written
because I
think it's interesting that certain songs take us to a time and/or
place even if we only
hear a few bars of the song.
And
as a Phonographian
it's also an opportunity to play, like a broken record, two of its
truisms:
The
Phonograph is an invention that began a social and popular culture
revolution of sound.
The
Phonograph and recorded sound created for each of us the "Best
seat in the house. Forever"©
On
December 6, take a moment and wish
Edison's Phonograph a Happy Birthday!
It's
a revolution still turning.
Trumpeting
the Revolution ©1990 Black Rock - Portraits on the Playa
by Douglas Keister
Listen
to exerpt from Red
River Rock, Johnny and the Hurricanes
Listen
to exerpt from I'm a Man,
The Yardbirds
Listen
to exerpt from Downtown,
Petula Clark
Listen
to Italian version of Downtown, Ciao,
Ciao
WATCH
one of the definitive examples of someone associating memories
with their record albums. Rob, played by John Cusack in the movie
High Fidelity, decides to reorganize his record
albums. How does he do it?
Not
alphabetical?
Nope...
What?...
Autobiographical."
(Note:
scene is rated R for language).
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