Respite Day 19: The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

Many themes surface throughout my life that have often taken the form of  lyrics or titles from songs that I have known. This post, a  lyric from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, is no exception. It best expresses the sentiment of this phase of my treatment and life.  Over the years music has provided me with titles and lyrics that often act as an epigraph to the following chapter from my past. I sometimes wonder what it is about my relationship to pop music as I grew up, and then later on to more serious music and even some gospel.  Like Americans of various generations, music formed  the soundtrack of my youth, young adulthood, middle age and now my advancing senescence (ha!) I do think that music imprints  grooves into the brain and soul that do not simply vanish as the currency of the music fades. I experienced this first hand with my mother's diminishment from Alzheimer's disease.  As her memory was depleted by the disease and the pathways, like washed out roads, failed to reach the destination of mutual recognition and identity, a tune we knew that she liked could reach her, bring her joy and for awhile preserve the bond between child and parent.  Music runs deep, deeper than the ordinary organic circuitry that makes sense of our lives, loves and situates us in place and time. As a Gospel singer once responded to a question regarding the origin of  her music, "It comes from somewhere between the marrow and the bone."

 I picked through Keith Richards' autobiography, A Life, while waiting for a friend the other day in Barnes and Noble.  It transported me to the summer of "Satisfaction" (1965).  I recalled the song's impact and dominance, reigning at number one on the American pop charts for over 6 weeks, which, at the time, was unheard of.  It also had a  length of  3"46 seconds, which subverted the usual manic format of youth radio. as I flipped through the book, mostly glancing at the photos, but secretly feeling the excitement again. It is difficult to express the enthusiasm I had for this song and how it colored the entire summer and my world.  I know now that it was a shared experience of a generation coming of age at a time when there was great social turmoil  in the U.S., in the world, and lest I forget......girls!!. It was a song of youthful rebellion, of an unsubtle sexual frustration , something that parents were sure to dislike.

Keith Richards, Guitarist & Song Writer

  But the best part was the signature guitar lick that introduced the song and would be heard repeatedly, from seemingly 100's of transistor radios everywhere you went, throughout half of that endless summer.  I was 12 years old (going on thirteen, thank you.) and, following the lead of older kids in the neighborhood, was a fanatical Rolling Stones' fan.  The atmosphere of the time re-surfaced in my thoughts,

So I close by asking my nieces, nephews, grands and other family or friends who may wish to reach me at some time in the increasingly foggy future, to bring a ukulele, harmonica or kazoo with you to the old folks' home and recall those few notes that even I can play on guitar.  You don't need to know any of the words, just those 3 or 4 notes that make up  that signature riff, and you'll see my eyes refocus as I mentally step into the "Wayback Machine" and find my way back to that idyllic time somewhere between boy scouts and acne.