I love listening to this album during the summer. Graceland just seems to work for me when it's warm out. I only recently acquired the album, though I remember it from my childhood. In fact, lots of my music now is music that I remember from my childhood. My dad is a music nut, after all.
For instance, I am bodily prevented from turning off John Mellencamp when it comes on the radio. My body will not let me change the station. When I was little, my dad would go into the basement (always the basement, in both houses that we lived in) and turn on Mellencamp and play his electric guitar. I don't love John Mellencamp, and if given a choice, I don't know that I would choose to listen to him, but when one of his songs comes on the radio, I can't ignore it.
Unfortunately, my dad didn't really succeed with Eric Clapton (though he would probably say he wished he had). I don't mind turning off Eric Clapton, though some of his songs are obvious classics. I've already expounded on the difficulty I have choosing between the electric and acoustic Layla. But I also assume that everyone who loves music has the same problem.
My dad has also, at various times, introduced me to: the Beatles (thank god), Led Zeppelin (the only really loud rock that I love passionately), Steely Dan (but not all Steely Dan), Chicago (try to explain to me how the song Beginnings is bad, and you'll fail), Stevie Ray Vaughn (who is like a hypnotic trance to me; like Mellencamp, I can't turn off his songs on the radio, even though I might not choose his songs otherwise), Dave Matthews, REM (and now I think I like REM more than my dad ever did), Paul Simon (once I stole a CD from one of the Simon box sets and kept it for like, two years. Bad daughter.), the Breeders (and I defintely stole his copy of Last Splash and never gave it back), Carole King (I have a burned copy of Tapestry. Bad fan.), Pink Floyd (he bought me one of those gold CD copies of Wish You Were Here), Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, as well as Neil Young (though to be honest, I got into those bands more through S and my friend SS), Elton John (I had a record with Rocket Man on it when I was a kid, and I still looooove that song), James Taylor (though I only really love the live CD), and Sheryl Crow (he had the Globe Sessions; I still have a burned copy of the CD).
And this doesn't even cover all the artists I remember hearing in the house as a kid. I'm a lucky person, because some people (S, for instance) have parents who actively dislike most music, and that always makes me sad. S doesn't like a lot of the "classic" rock bands because he'd really never heard them in his childhood. He was self- and peer directed in terms of a lot of his music taste. But me! My most favorite band for a long time was Dave Matthews, and I STOLE a copy of Under the Table and Dreaming away from my father when I was a sophomore or junior in high school. Of course, I like bands that my dad has never listened to, because I too have found people on my own, or through peers.
Of course, now S and I (and especially S) try to pass music on to my dad once in a while, because we are really discovering new bands that we love all the time. Although, S doesn't feel successful as a human being unless he makes you love Pearl Jam before he's done with you. I think he's gotten my dad to the point that my dad would like to see PJ live, which, let's concede it, that's a success. S has that effect on people though. I mean, good lord, I don't even like PJ that much and I love seeing them live. He's converted a lot of people. I'm not so good at that. Then again, it's not so easy to convince people that Ani DiFranco is that good. She's sort of a love her/hate her kind of artist.
Gaaahhhh. This was supposed to be about Paul Simon and summer, and I'm way off. So I'm done. I could go on about music forever, so I'm stopping. Suffice it to say, though, that music almost always sounds better in the summer, in the car, with the windows down and the volume turned up.
Or in a t-top, tops off. :)
Posted by: frog | May 20, 2005 at 01:47 PM