My dad would sit in the floor for hours, oversized headphones on his head, tethered to the console on the homemade shelf as he listened to one record after another. As he listened to one, he would very slowly, with great attention to detail, drag the velvet brush in a circular motion tracing the grooves of the next album to go on, inspecting and reinspecting it until it was was free of prints and dust.

It seemed kind of boring to me. Watching him, though, left no doubt there was something very special in it for him.

Fast forward two decades and I could be found laying on the couch, remote in one hand, a jewel case in the other, gliding through the selection in the 100-disc changer, lost in the music and reveling in the ridiculous good fortune that if I wanted, I could hit the random button and not hear the same song for more than four days. 

There was something very special in it for me.

It’s been about a year since I decided to create this blog. From the beginning, one of the key questions I’ve been trying to answer is “what does music mean to me?”

I don’t really have an answer.

But I know it’s therapy for life. It relaxes, energizes, soothes, inspires, and comforts. It gives life a soundtrack. It marks memories and creates new ones.

My life is a worn-out 53-year-old mix tape. It comes unravelled now and again, but when I hit play it never lets me down, and there always seems to be room for the next song.

While I watched my dad work through his record collection like a museum curator, responsible for preserving the collection as he listend intently for the next new discovery, my own music journey began by literally turning back the dial on an old AM radio that doubled as a piece of furniture.

I can remember laying in bed, the giant wood console radio handed down to me from my grandparents – damn I wish I had that monstrosity today – tuned carefully to 610 KILT in Houston. Night after night I drifted off to late-70s hits like “Reminiscing,” “You Belong to Me,” and “How Much I Feel.” I see the room and everything in it, the low light from the hallway under the door, and the yellowish glow from the large dial and console. I don’t remember the music because of the moment and place, I remember the moment and place because of the music. 

From his meditation spot in the living room floor, Dad rarely played music on speakers, I’m not sure why. On our father and son road trips, though, the cassettes were mixed with classics from Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, some occasional Beatles, and a sprinkling of Herb Alpert. I don’t hear “Time is on My Side” or “The Times They Are A-Changin‘” without remembering those long middle-of-the-night drives home from Dallas.

My first loves in music were my generation’s response to what his generation loved, diving into the new wave, punk, and alternative music of the early 80s. Ironically, as I aged, I found room for the music he loved as well and today there’s very little I don’t enjoy listening to.

What’s it like to be turned on to a great new song or band with a suggestion from a friend – or today through an algorithm on a music platform? 

I vividly remember my first listen to songs like “Hotel California” and “Stairway to Heaven,” wondering how it was possible for someone to create such songs.

Milling around the cafeteria during a seventh grade band dance, Andy – a percussionist I think – pulled an album from a bag and held it up for me to see. We were encouraged to bring records for the band director to play during the dance, and most of it was Top 40. It was 1984, an outstanding year in new music, but I was about to learn that there would always be so much more to discover across the musical landscape. 

The album was Led Zeppelin IV, and Andy said it was the greatesat rock album ever recorded. I shrugged. I loved lots of great music and while I’d heard of it, I’d never heard it. Couldn’t have been that special, right?

But as Andy walked back toward me once the band director had dropped the needle and “Black Dog” began rattling from the speakers all I could think was “Can we turn it up even louder?” The album was as old as I was, but it was new to me. 

I did what teen boys do at a dance, rocking back and forth, occasionally strumming my air guitar, and trading understanding nods with others on this unexpected journey. Four songs in, we accepted the frenzied crescendo of “Stairway to Heaven,” and there was no going back.

Buried amongst the warehouse of memories in my head, the clarity of that first listen couldn’t be more vivid today. It’s not a birth, a marriage, a graduation, or a death. It inexplicably stands out without being a milestone. It’s just music. 

But when Jimi Hendrix asks “Are you experienced?” I always imagine him talking about one’s relationship with music.

Is all that clear? It’s the best way I can come up with to explain how I learned to love music and what it means to me.

What about you? What ignited your love for music and what has it meant in your life?