Music has always had this amazing power to touch. It has the ability to reach deep down inside of you & bring up feelings of all kinds. We all have our special songs that no matter where we are, the instant we hear the first few bars we smile, we cry, we uncontrollably burst out laughing or we even break out our awesome dance moves that make everyone point and stare (but we don’t care do we?).
The person or persons singing that song KNOW us. They GET us. They UNDERSTAND us…….and we know them. They are our friends, our confidants. They are there for us whenever we need them…..good times or bad. They are able to take exactly what we are feeling at that moment and express it with their lyrics & music.
I was a huge music fan when I was a kid. I had a local record shop that I ran to every week when I got my allowance to pick up a 45 rpm single that I would play over and over till my parents could actually sing parts of a song they never heard before or sometimes couldn’t even understand.
I remember being able to tell if someone got me an album for my birthday by the shape of the package. That beautiful 12 inch square! Those were always the presents I opened first. I was never able to open presents till after we sang Happy Birthday, so I would look at all the presents sitting on the sofa and scope out the order. That box is probably clothes, that present looks like a baseball glove, that weird shaped one is probably a toy.
But THAT one……it was my 13th birthday and there it was…that now infamous blue cover with the painted animal skull. Eagles – Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975). I turned the album over and looked at all the songs that I had heard on WABC radio. All the songs that I had sat & waited hours for through commercials for all kinds of stuff that I thought I would never buy were now here at my fingertips. This album knew everything I was feeling as a teenager making that awkward transition into adulthood.
I could listen to “Best of My Love” while I was thinking about the girl who sat in front of me in class. I could play “Already Gone” while I played the air guitar and sang at the top of my lungs alone in my room. I could just sit back and daydream while “Take it Easy” or “Peaceful Easy Feeling” played in the background. When I was sad, “Desperado” shared some of that sadness with me.
I woke up this morning to find out we lost another special person…..and as the reality hit I began to hurt. A friend had passed and although I never met him, I knew him & he knew me. The songs from that album I got as a kid started playing in my head & I was transported to that time at 13 where the Eagles were as much a part of my life as baseball & comic books were…….and the pain began to hurt just a little less knowing that the friend I never met will actually always be with me. He will still understand me. He will still know me.
R.I.P my friend Glenn Frey …….thanks for being a friend…I think I’ll play the CD today.