Wednesday, November 12, 2014

The Music of My Years


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The musical soundtrack
of my parents' love story haunts my years:
I'll Get By, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Skylark,
plaintive, lovelorn notes taking me back
down all those country roads.

Just fifteen, hopping into a two-tone Chevy
with boys who smelled like talcum powder,
pack of cigarettes rolled in their t-shirt sleeves,
and all was love and dreams in the 60's, 
as the 8-track played
Blue Velvet, My Girl, Where the Boys Are, I'm Sorry,
and I dancing up a storm to Sherry Baby 
while  people fell back and I grooved 
in the glow of their circle,
as they laughed and clapped.

Gastown in the 70's, in my fringed suede jacket,
as Your Song played in the gallery,
and I finally was cool, like I never was in school,
Bridge Over Troubled Waters spinning on the stereo,
so much I still didn't know,
but I was learning.

Folk tunes and soft guitars in a coffeehouse
in the 80's, Suzanne, Fire and Rain,
and we just knew we would be Forever Young.

In Tofino, in the 90's, it was all Jane and Enya:
Bound by the Beauty, and listening to Watermark
as I drove that highway home 
through the old growth in the rain,
heading towards all that I loved, my soul lifting off
with the joy and wonder of having
realized a dream.

A little boy fell from a window back then,
and his dad wrote Tears in Heaven.
Tears on earth, too, in the listening
to that heartbreak, little boy home from the circus
on the best day of his life, and his father's worst.

The night they closed the Peace Camp down,
Dana Lyons, singing Magic as hippies danced
in a clearcut under a full, round Grandmother Moon,
and behind and around and through all of the tunes,
the unending song of the waves,
ebbing and flowing, forever, in my sea-spun heart.

Now it's the old tunes I play, full circle.
From vinyl to cd's, the tunes in my heart stay the same,
down all of those music-filled years,
the love songs of my parents' lives, and mine,
captured, forever enraptured,
memories shining golden
against the soundtrack of our lives.

For Kerry's prompt at Real Toads: Bye Bye Miss American Pie, about how iconic people shape our lives........definitely it was music that shaped and serenaded me, all the way along.


13 comments:

  1. Wow!

    You write so well, like I could see the screens flashing by

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  2. tears in heaven by eric clapton... i only learned recently about the background of this song... moved me deeply.... songs are so connected to a certain time...the feel of the world in that moment and the joys and angst and love and fear... oy... have some songs that still make me shiver when i hear them...

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  3. I really enjoyed this soundtrack to your life, Sherry! I always hated the song "Sherry Baby" because my father used to croon it to me in public!

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  4. Jane Siberry?!?!?!?!?!!? yes!!!!
    love this, oh Sherry Baby! ;)

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  5. Music is so important it shapes us and our memories spring alive upon hearing a tune. The songs you mention sparked some memories for me. Sherry baby was a special one.

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  6. I love the way that music can bring us back into a moment so fully...I love the way this comes full circle...so many beautiful glimpses of memory, Sherry...well done!

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  7. I loved how you went through the stories and memories ... brilliant :-)

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  8. So many memories and the songs themselves are icons of their age.

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  9. reliving those musical moments will always remain a source of joy..Beautiful Sherry..

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  10. What would we do without the music? Hard to believe your folks named you Sherry even before Sherry Baby! Really. My story would be similar to yours if I did music, so I stuck with Meryl Streep movies, though she is a little white bread. I started a poem with anti-war songs, but started crying. Yours is a gentle paced poem, but the titles of songs show those emotions raging. Great poem.

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  11. Music triggers such wonderful memories within the lines....you have taken us on a wonderful musical journey here Sherry. Truly lovely!

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  12. Wow, Sherry. All the old tunes.
    I'm wondering if I should try writing to this prompt. Maybe-perhaps some words will come. Cross your fingers for me.
    K

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  13. I love this Sherry! So, many great tunes layered with history a musical quilt~ Bravo

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