Living on Borrowed Music

I am the sixth of eight children. Never mind the down side to that; it is insignificant compared to the positive. My older brothers and sisters had good taste in music, so while my peers in elementary school were bopping to Captain Kangaroo, I was rocking to The Clash, Queen, Billy Idol, Bob Marley, and the Cure.

My dad also listened to good music: one of my life’s most unforgettable moments is when on a church outing (I was maybe 13 at the time), my dad taxed the factory speakers in our mini van with Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”.

Don’t think for a moment that any of this made me cool: I never was. But I was musically rich, and so it is no wonder that I spurned trite pop bands in my youth in favor of groups with talent and depth.

And yet, there was a disadvantage: growing up listening to my dad’s music and my siblings’ music meant I never owned any good music. So as my siblings left home, my music selections dwindled until finally I found myself listening to—think no less of me—the radio.

For years I languished in the FM airwaves, a slave to the deejays and the banality of the masses. My senses progressively dulled until—thankfully—I made the sudden, sickening realization.

Sure, now that I have come to recognize my error, I should be able to buy my own CDs. But building a music library takes time and discretionary income. All those years I could have been building my library, I was living on borrowed music!