I Owe You An Apology, Music

[from www.automatoncity.com]

I was at Target with my girlfriend last week.

And, as I can't help but wander off at Target, no matter who I'm with, I ended up strolling extremely slow through the movie and music section. An album I already had on my ipod (also known as "It's A Wonderful Liepod") was on sale. The Gaslight Anthem's The '59 Sound was going for $10.

I absently grabbed it and carried it back with me to my girlfriend.

"Are you going to get it?" she asked, as we walked the main loop asile towards the cash registers.

However, for some reason, the question blind-sided me, which seemed incredibly strange and silly. I mean, I went through the trouble of staring at the album, deciding to pick it up, carrying it around with me, only for my girlfriend to ask if I was actually going through with the purchase before I really considered buying it.

"No...I don't think I am..." I said quietly, as I looked suspiciously at the compact disc in my hand.

"Why not?" my girlfriend asked.

"I have no idea..." I said gently, like I had just woken up from a nap, as I randomly shoved The Gaslight Anthem behind some country album with barley and a cowboy hat on the cover.

Suddenly, I thought my brain was broken. How mindless am I? I feel like I do things sometimes without thinking, of course...but this was such a moment of frail humanity. How do I not know if I'm picking up something to buy?

Dating me must be like a constant out-of-body experience.

I may just be that stupid.

Or perhaps it was because I hadn't purchased a CD in years.

I don't even remember what the last album was that I actually spent money on. I want to say that it was The Arcade Fire's Neon Bible. And before that, it may have been years too. I'm moving out of my place in two weeks, so I've been copiously cleaning out my room. And I had to pet away all of the dust on my Neon Bible like it was the actual Neverending Story, just stashed away to protect humanity from...I don't know, everything, really. There's nothing good in The Neverending Story. Everything would just scare the fuck out of me in real life. Yeah right, like deep-down you really want Falkor hanging out of your window making that loud sound he makes anytime he goes too fast.

Anyway, a week passed.

Then, last Friday, I left for Mexico. But the night before, my friend Grant called me to see if I'd ride with him south. As I have always found Grant to be a worthy modern traveler (more literary than worldly), I absolutely signed up to speed towards Mexico the next day.

"Good," Grant said. "Also, I want to smoke a bunch of cigarettes and listen to some really good rock 'n roll on the way down. You in?"

"Absolutely," I told him, thinking of all the artists that would fit our arteries and veins of sound (Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bruce Springsteen, Lucero and so on). Should I make a playlist? I wondered.

No. I should just buy that fucking CD, I finally decided.

So, going according to plan, the following morning, I drove to Target, pushed the country album with barley and a cowboy hat out of the way and snagged The Gaslight Anthem, which was now going for $8. And even then, I had a sudden and mild reservation about buying the album. But I was quickly back on.

"Yeah right, I'm buying you, motherfucker," I either thought or said. I don't know. I'm not really sure sometimes.

As I left the store, I began feverishly unwrapping the album. I read the lyrics and looked at the pictures and I realized how sorely I missed such a small event. There was a time when I would spend all of my money on music. When I was in ninth grade, all I wanted was piles and piles of CDs. Then they made blank CDs. And then they made piracy software. And then they made burning programs. And then they made iPods. And then they made iTunes. And then nobody bought music anymore.

And for years I argued that I wasn't one of those people, the kind that makes up excuses for why they don't buy music in stores. I would give reasons like, "It's not like I'm actively not buying CDs. It's just that there's no CDs I really want. All of the music I get is from friends who just hand me what they like and I check it out. I'm not avoiding store music."

But here it was, The Gaslight Anthem's The '59 Sound, on my ipod and not on my shelf. And I had to admit that I would absolutely buy the album if I didn't already have it on my computer.

Worse than anything, I realized that I hadn't contributed to music thriving in years. I long ago lost a good interest in attending shows and I stopped buying band shirts, so where the hell have I been in the music scene? Just a fuckin' freerider?

Yep. Because I'm quite positive that I haven't been sending these songwriters individual checks either. What an asshole I've been. These men and women had been writing songs and entertaining me for years without me ever contributing. I just sit there and take in their music, like a king amused by jesters.

I often play music casually on my computer. How dirty, how loathsome, how brutally honest and unfair. I upload whatever music is handed to me and listen to it while I do other things. How special is it really? I usually just listen to it see if my friend is right. I run checklists through my ego to see if my friend gave me good music. Effortless and emotionless is how I've listened to music these last ungodly years, I realized.

I suddenly felt like I owed music an apology. Yes, for a long time, I didn't buy music because I thought the price of albums was too high. Maybe it was a protest. I don't know. But it turned into convenience and then into laziness (as so many protests often do), and I knew I had failed myself as a music lover.

It reminded me of when I first started listening to vinyl in college.

I would drive all the way to Huntington Beach so I could buy these old jazz and lounge records from a vinyl shop. Then I'd come home and find the right groove for the needle, and I'd just lay there on my floor listening to these records for hours. It was like attending church and coming home and humming the hymns to yourself. I went there for it and I came home with something glorious, I thought as a musical heathen.

It was only a few extra movements to listen to vinyl on my record player than it was to listen to a CD in my stereo, and for some shallow beating of my heart, I felt like I had earned the music. I went through the trouble of listening to those albums that I couldn't hear anywhere else. The magic of those records was that I couldn't listen to it in my car or at a party. I could only listen to those songs in my bedroom. The static would bump as the needle started rolling and bumping along like a car in a cartoon. And I'd fall asleep there sometimes, listening to those records.

The magic of music has borders that I don't quite understand. Maybe it isn't always about the sound. Maybe it isn't always about the words. Maybe it isn't always about the guitar, the bass, the drums, the horns, the piano, et cetera. Maybe sometimes it's just what you make of it.

Sometimes, maybe the beauty of music is just the effort to get it and hear it, you know?