Before It All Got So Crazy

This morning Sirius/XM  Classic Vinyl cycled to a song that flooded my soul and psyche with blissful feelings, Whenever music makes me feel this way, I know without checking that it was recorded pre-1970.  In this case the song was Questions 67 and 68 by the Chicago Transit Authority. Yes this song was recorded by Chicago Transit Authority in 1969 before they became known as just Chicago. It  was the actual Chicago Transit Authority that took exception to their name, So they dropped the Transit Authority. Most of us know them as Chicago.

But I digressed.  In 1970 I bit off a variety of "Christianity" that nearly wrecked my life.  Well it did wreck many aspects of my life for several years before God Himself intervened to save me from myself.  Saul encountered Jesus on the Damascus Road.  I encountered Him in a puppy  and in a bowl of turnip greens.

And as I am speaking Spotify just cycled to Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is off the same album.  How happy can one person  get?  To say that this music "does it for me" is a gross understatement.  I'm a very happy person now and it does me much good to know how happy I was before Cujo bit me.

There's nothing I can do about 1970-74.  But I don't want to do anything about those years. Things weren't all bad.  I graduated from high school, I graduated from my town's junior college and entered senior college as a junior in '73.  I drove by that junior college this weekend and thought, "That's where you started.  You graduated from there. You earned a degree".  I'm much more proud of that associates degree now than I was at the time.

Spotify is now playing Beginnings from Chicago Transit Authority

"Time passes much too quickly
When we're together laughing
I wish I could sing it to you.
Wish I could sing it to you...
I feel a thousand different feelings"

Perhaps "A Thousand Different Feelings" would be a better title for this post than "Before It All Got So Crazy."  However this music probably wouldn't affect me so deeply without those dark years.  Besides the fact that not everything about those years was bad, even the darkness served a very important purpose. I read that grief acts like a dredge that enlarges our capacity for joy.  I think this purging can be true of nearly any negative emotion.  I must have a very large capacity for joy!

I just asked Spotify to play Questions 67 and 68 one more time.  Spotify's motto is always "Your wish is my command."  I love that about Spotify! For the past little while I have struggled to put into words how this music makes me feel. Well a therapist would say, "It's how you choose to feel when you're listening to it."  "Isn't that what I said?"  "No, that's not what you said."

So what else was popular in 1969?  How about You've Made Me So Very Happy by Blood, Sweat and Tears.  "No, when you're with that person you choose to feel very happy".  Whatever...