In Love With Times Long Past

Music is a world within itself
With a language we all understand
With an equal opportunity
For all to sing, dance and clap their hands
But just because a record has a groove
Don’t make it in the groove
But you can tell right away at letter A
When the people start to move

Can’t you feel it all over
Come on let’s feel it all over people

-Stevie Wonder (Sir Duke)

As the weekend nears, I can feel the excitement building in my chest. I’m trying to stifle it down (I don’t believe in tempting Fate with over much happiness) but I am still finding a welcome spring in my step and a lighter feeling in my shoulders. I’ve been carrying around some burdens for so long; I think I’d forgotten what it felt like to feel excited and somewhat carefree. I’m finally going home to Texas and leaving Florida far, far behind!

There is another reasons for my giddines. That is my newly planned detour this weekend to New Orleans. I’ve always wanted to stop off there and see the French Quarter, eat some real Cajun food, and just absorb the lively culture. And now….I get to! Speaking of culture, I am listening to Percy Sledge at the moment as I write this.  Sam Cooke will be next.

Someone pointed out my love and taste for older music, movies and even my turn of phrase this week.

As usual, like everything does, it got me thinking about why. Well, why do I love Percy Sledge? Besides the fact that his voice is a rich, heartbreaking cry of sweet pain, I love the things Percy sings about. I may try to hide it at times, even deny it to myself and others, but the truth is, I am a romantic to beat all romantics. I sing along with and close my eyes to Billie Holiday, Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, Percy Sledge and the man I love, Sam Cooke, because I truly can’t help it.

The common thread here, it seems to me, is that they sing about love, heartbreak and life with poignancy and real emotion. If it isn’t obvious already, I live in and am comfortable with my emotions. I want someone to feel about me the way Percy does about his Kind Woman. I want to be loved with Sam Cooke’s passion. I want the people who’ve wronged me to lament like only Willie Nelson can lament.

It is more than that though.

In the hearts of their voices, I can hear a time long since past.

When my favorites sing, I can see people dressed to the nines to go out for a night on the town, wearing hats and stoles, and sporting a chivalrous attitude. I see a woman in a thin, cotton summer dress, laughing up into the face of her man. I see another sitting at a table with her face hidden behind her hands, crying her heart out. Sam Cooke and Percy Sledge make me see endless plains of wheat, dusty old dirt roads and T-Model Fords.  Sam sings songs like; You Were Made For Me, Baby, Please Come Home To Me, Bring It on Home To Me, and so many more and they all just make me melt.

My favorite song of Sam’s starts with these lyrics, “Baby, won’t you please come home, cause your daddy’s all alone…” Sam’s voice is perfect and brimming with effortlessly controlled intensity in each song he does. It even has early rock ‘n’ roll undertones to it, but they are overwhelmed by the gospel-born smooth soul.  He is a man in a time when it was okay to love your woman -okay to love her to distraction- because real men did. These days, young boys not old enough to grow hair on their chests or palms sing sappy songs about some chick they just broke up with and we herald it as the newest love song.

Percy Sledge sings his heart out in the song, Stop The World Tonight, appreciating a moment in time. In this day and age, who stops to appreciate any moment in time? Time is always a-wasting in our hurry up and wait world of today. Percy takes his time when he sings, delivering the original rendition of When A Man Loves a Woman in such a way that no one will ever match it. No one. His crooning, nasally, heart-wrenching voice lingers over the notes, making it impossible for any listener to miss the honesty in each lyric.

Billie makes me see a smoky room, long handled cigarette holders, and a single spotlight on a soulful, troubled black woman singing out her pain on stage. Her voice slides over and between the notes, filling them with longing and sorrow. You can hear her battle in life in every haunting note. Billie grows on you, like a fine wine, the smell of a good cigar or an aged Scotch. She is art in life, her voice is unparalleled, and she has no competition. On a dark rainy fall day, when the wind is moaning and the fireplace is going, nothing but Billie will do.

Willie, the best of Willie, can make tears roll down my face. Hello Walls, Angel Flying To Close to the Ground, Darkness on the Face of the Earth, and Funny Time Slips Away, will twist your fucking heart. His simply put, naked lyrics paint a picture of the most human of emotions. The emotions you face alone in your room at night, when you don’t hide behind a bottle of whiskey or wine, a string of meaningless relationships, or even just petty distractions like T.V. I don’t even consider him a country musician; he is in a class all to himself as far as I am concerned.

Stevie Wonder makes me believe in love. If the others sing out about the pain of losing love, he sings out the joys of finding it waiting and willing. His voice lifts my heart into wreathes of smiles and his lyrics make me think. You can’t help wiggling and dancing to his music. The man not only represents beating the odds by virtue of just being a blind multi-faceted, unbelievably talented musician; he shares his success with others with a sweet, unique voice of dreams coming true.

Now, I could go on like this about many musicians. Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Pink Floyd….so many more. They make me think of hopeful ideals, good times, a nation changing a great deal in a very short amount of time, revolutions meant to change the world for better, people uniting for a common cause, and the ultimate demise and corruption of those ideals.

But the original musicians I mentioned have a special place in my heart.

I am love with a time I never lived in.

Who knows how I would’ve rebelled against a time when women couldn’t vote or hold down a job like a man. Maybe I would’ve thrown a fit and become a flower child, maybe I would’ve been one of the few women who fought my way into corporate America by whatever means necessary, maybe I would’ve been content to have my babies and husband and spend my energies taking care of them.

All I do know is that it seems like there was a time when someone’s word meant something, that some values were held sacred, that family had real meaning, kids still played outside in their neighborhood, and people could stop and help a stranded woman on the side of the road without worrying about being killed for the 40 bucks in their wallet. And I like to escape to that world in music long since past, but not forgotten.

Tell me what has come out in the last decade or two that can rival that, and I might listen. But my heart knows what it knows.

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