Musical heritage

I would never really consider myself a musician. I enjoy singing and have been told I have a nice singing voice, but although I've dabbled in piano, guitar, penny whistle, and clarinet, I don't actually play any musical instrument. And I've never taken a music theory class. Sure, I can read music in a very average way, but I can't tell key signatures to save my life. 

Still, that doesn't mean I don't appreciate music. I grew up with music. We had music playing in the house and/or car more often than we did not. We had a record player, and when I was really little, we kids even had a toy record player that played plastic records. We'd get small records from our Sunday school class on occasion. Of course, we also had a cassette player and eventually a CD player. My dad had a nice stereo system with box speakers and a high-quality amp. We were always listening to something, be it Peter, Paul, and Mary; Nightnoise; Simon & Garfunkel; Amy Grant; or Evie.  

We also listened to the radio a lot, mostly for music but also for A Prairie Home Companion. I remember when we moved to Nigeria we took several cassettes of radio music with us, and some of my favorites were from 94.7 "The Wave." Back in the '80s and early '90s, the station played mostly what we'd call today "New Age" or possibly "easy listening." Today the station is smooth jazz, which--pardon me for saying so--is not the same thing. 

Our favorite album as a family was not in fact an album at all. It was a cassette tape of radio favorites that my parents had recorded off the radio sometime in the '70s. It ranges from folk to rock and includes songs such as "Africa" by Toto, "Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel, "Memory" by Barbra Streisand, "Your Song" by Elton John, "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor, and "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin, I found that song so moving that I memorized it at the age of 10, something I'd never done with a non-Sunday-school song before. Considering how many times we played to that tape, it's a miracle it lasted long enough for Dad to make a CD of it for each of us kids. That CD is priceless. 

One of the radio shows we used to listen to (and record) was "Thistle & Shamrock" with Fiona Ritchie. I don't remember much about it from my early childhood, to be honest, but I did love the fiddle and flute. One summer in high school when we lived in Nigeria, I went through Dad's boxes of tapes and pulled out a bunch of "Thistle & Shamrock" tapes and started listening to them. I fell in love with Celtic music and its derivatives in American music. There was one song I particularly liked about a terrible storm, but I cannot for the life of me remember it now or even enough lyrics to find it on Google. (Believe me, I've tried.) [Addendum: My dad pointed me to the song, “White Squall” sung by Stan Rogers, which you can listen to here.]

In my last two years of college I was steeped in Celtic music. My junior year, I was invited to join a group of older students and alumni who gathered monthly for folk dancing and music. I was enraptured, to say the least. Most of my favorite memories from college days are from those folk sings, with Kirstin on the fiddle, or playing guitar while she and others sang. Some of my favorites were what we called "The Dead Lover Song" (about a man seeing his drowned lover, who rises from the river to embrace him with cold arms--*shudder*), "My Nine to Fives are Over," "Bonny Lighthorseman," and "Molly Malone." One time, Anders sang "Iowa" with his sister, and every time I hear that song to this day, I think of them. The folk sing after Eddie got engaged to dear, sweet Hannah, he proudly sang one of my favorites, "Take Her In Your Arms."  

My roommate that year was an MK from France who had been born in Ireland, and she was also enthralled with Celtic and folk music. We went to these folk dances together, and they were the most peaceful moments of my entire college experience.  

So I was pretty stoked to recently discover the Thistlepod, NPR's podcast of "Thistle & Shamrock" (which is not on my local NPR radio station). I'm having a little trouble getting podcasts onto my mp3 player, but I'll figure it out eventually. I did get one on there to listen to on the way to work, even though it was only about 15 minutes long. Between the songs, Fiona asked her guests about the way music has become about performance. Her guest, Mark Williams, talked about folk music and ballads from Scotland and Ireland being about sharing music together, participation and not performance. I thought of the oral tradition of our folk sings. No one ever had sheets of lyrics. You just learned a song by listening to it more than once. It wasn't ever about Kirstin or Lisa or anyone else, about their talents and musical abilities. It was about the music and the stories, about the community we were building those nights. And I do think with albums and concerts and iPods, we lose that.I can listen to those same folk songs on YouTube or one of the CDs Lisa made for me, but I can't recreate the fellowship and warmth of those nights in a cozy home in central Illinois. 

If there's one thing I miss most about college--and high school before that--it's participating in music as fellowship, singing not just in church because it's on the schedule or in choir or other expected places, but singing for fun and togetherness. Folk music gave me that, and to this day, ten years later, I am wistful, longing to have it again someday.