Salvation is Created

Music has a way of searching out parts of my soul and psyche that I have long forgotten existed.  I have been a subscriber to Sirius/XM radio for over two years and I enjoy listening nearly every day.  I have become so spoiled to no commercials that it's difficult for me to listen to commercial radio at all. I have had 70s, 80s, and 90s music programmed in from the beginning.  But only two weeks ago did it dawn on me to program 60s music. I have no idea why it took two years for this to occur to me.  For my entire adult life I have thought that 70s music defined me.  I thought Dan Fogelberg, James Taylor, Carole King, Carly Simon,  Don McLean, America, Bread and so many others were the musicians who wrote and sang the most significant songs that carry my own story.  I was wrong.

The music of the 60s has opened passages in my subconscious  that have been closed for decades. The songs have dragged my emotions through a time warp of passionate proportions. How does it make me feel?  Some of the songs make me  feel really good. I mean a good that I can't comprehend intellectually. I would try to tell you if I knew. But I don't know!  But it's like Conrad's counselor in Ordinary People told him "Not all feelings feel good." I'm certainly feeling that too. When the crucible of one's adolescence is in play,  you can't control how it's going to feel.  You just go with it.

There is a phenomenon though that I finally had to stop and look at.  The songs that affect me most deeply, for better or for worse, were recorded in 1968. So I took a closer look at 1968.  In 1968 I was fifteen years old living with my family in  Enterprise, Alabama. I had a mother and a father,  a brother and a sister. We had a dog and a cat. I was surrounded by extended family, by provisions and sustenance, and by love. I had some really good friends. I was doing very well as a sophomore at the Enterprise High School. I was to become an award-winning band member with my trombone. Although I thought I had problems at the time, looking back, in so many ways, I had it made.

My girl friend was two years older than me. You've heard "Once you move past holding hands, you can never go back."  We never in two years moved past holding hands. A little strange maybe, but it worked for us.  I cared about her a lot and she cared for me. But because of that age difference  and other issues that come between two people, the friendship fizzled.  Just as well.  We both moved on to better things. I'll just leave the autobiography at that.

I did a little research about what was going on in our country in 1968. On January 31 the North Vietnamese launched the Tet offensive. This offensive, involving over 70,000 North Vietnamese solders, took the war from the forests to the cities. It changed the course of the war. On March 31 LBJ announced plans to limit the war in Vietnam, but very little changed.  On April 4th Martin Luther King, Jr.  was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. On May 3rd the US and N. Vietnamese agree to peace talks. But all they did was talk.  On June 4th Robert Kennedy was assassinated. On October 31, LBJ announced  a halt to all bombing. but the senseless war and the killing continued. Student demonstrations, which would become massive and deadly, were just heating up.  "All we are saying is give peace a chance" was to be more than a popular song; it became the anthem of the anti-Vietnam movement.

With all the horror and tragedy of 1968 I thought "Why does this music make me feel so good?  Why, in spite of the sometimes painful aspects of the evoked memories, are my triggered emotions full of goodness and hope? Was I that insensitive to the world around me?"  So I read on...

On December 21st, 1968 NASA launched Apollo 8 atop a Saturn V rocket, the most powerful rocket of its kind.  That rocket propelled Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders into space.  On December 24th these three astronauts became the first humans to orbit the moon. But much more significant than the orbit itself, they sent  back to us the first photos of Earth from space. For the first time in human history we all witnessed the iconic "Earthrise." This created a paradigm shift for all of mankind and for all time.  On Christmas Eve, 1968 "Peace on Earth and goodwill to men"  if not a real possibility, became a necessity. Our blue planet wasn't that big after all.

When they returned to spaceship Earth, the astronauts received hundreds of cards, letters and telegrams celebrating their incredible journey and contribution to mankind.  One telegram stood out more than all the others. It simply read, "You saved 1968."

I'm sure that soon enough I am going to have my fill of music from the 1960s.  The music of Dan Fogelberg, my favorite 70s singer,  will forever be a touchstone for me.  Nothing will ever change that. That night in Chattanooga, the last time I saw him before he died,  when he gave his band a break, Fogelberg remained on stage.  Under the quiet blue lights, he placed his hands on the keyboard and touched the piano with a single chord. I knew in that instant he was about to sing my favorite of his,"To the Morning."  And he did.

Ah music!   What can I say about  what music means to me?  If there were words to describe it, then we wouldn't need the music.