I was born in 1983 when studies had recently shown that playing classical music for babies made them smarter. My mother, of course, wanted only what was best for her baby, so I spent the first five or so years of my life listening to all the greats -- Mozart, Bach, and especially Beethoven, whom I adored. I remember being a young child in our station wagon and not wanting Mom to turn off the engine (and, by extension, the cassette player) until the Fifth Symphony was over, swinging my feet happily, picking at the congealed splotch of glitter and glue on the red backseat upholstery.
I created that stain all by myself in kindergarden when I emerged from St. Agnes toting paper Christmas ornaments. (One, a heavily-crayoned purple candle with glitter trim, has actually survived the years and still makes an appearance on my tree.) I was so full of news about my day that I dropped an ornament on the seat, creating a really neat stain. Mom didn’t think it was so neat, and that day, Beethoven was shunned in favor of Led Zeppelin, her favorite band to this day.
Instead of punishing me by witholding my beloved composer, she intrigued me -- I loved Led Zeppelin and soon was poking through my mother’s classic rock tapes. Thus, I cultivated addictions to Robert Palmer (the "Simply Irresistible" guy) and the solo careers of all the Beatles (yes, and even Ringo.) Oddly, it wasn’t until later that I knew that those four guys had been in a band together -- my parents only had a Beatles vinyl collection.
Then came the advent of smaller flat discs -- CDs, -- and the first two that I ever owned were the soundtracks to the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, and those were the absolute height of coolness. So I existed in this little musical universe until I started the second grade, at which point the school librarian, a friend of my mother’s, introduced her to the soundtrack from the film The Last of the Mohicans. Out of curiosity, I swiped the tape and listened to it.
I think it was somewhere in the middle of the sixth track, "Promontory," that I realized at the depth of my soul that this was what music should be like. It wasn’t so much the sound of the songs as it was the level of emotional involvement they inspired in me. I closed my eyes and let my spirit soar when the strings section went crazy. For several weeks I listened to nothing but that tape, so of course, I was thrilled when my teacher, Mrs. Connie Hatfield, told us that we would be having a "holiday party" (because God forbid you say "Christmas" in the public schools) and that we were welcome to bring in some music.
I could share my tape! I could show everyone the beauty I had found! I was squirming in my seat -- I wanted only to go home and get that tape so I could show it off. The day of the party arrived, and when Mrs. Hatfield asked who wanted to go first, I was out of my seat instantly. I put my tape into the player and pushed the black "play" button. I had been careful to put the tape on my favorite part, and as I returned to my seat, humming along, I missed the first murmurs of dissent.
Finally, I think it was Timmy Maxey who turned to me and said, "What is this, anyway?" I told him about the soundtrack proudly, and he looked me squarely in the face and said, "It’s boring." Two minutes later, the rest of the class revolted and demanded that my tape be expelled from the player. I remember trudging up the aisle, eyes on the tan, tiled floor, to retrieve my tape from the ugly, gray-brown cassette player with JCPS stamped on the side of the cheap, grainy plastic. I fumbled it putting the tape back in the case and then was jostled aside by the others, who had a single of Mariah Carey’s "Dreamlover" and wanted to hear it instead. I didn’t really like it.
I think that was the first time that I’d really had it brought home to me that I didn’t belong, and I liked that feeling even less than I did that song. I hid the tape and didn’t touch it for a week.
The third-grade talent show was more of the same -- while there were five acts to the same M.C. Hammer song, I was the only kid playing the "Elizabeth Waltz" on the piano. The teachers all said it was really good. No one else did. A couple of kids booed me.
By the fourth grade, I had decided that I was going to try to be like normal people, so I begged and pleaded with my mother and got Ace of Base’s first album. I also tuned my radio dial away from the public station that played classical music and onto the current most popular station, WDJX.
For the next four years, I immersed myself in whatever was the most popular, and my CD collection grew and diversified. In one CD drawer I had Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill (and when my mother listened to the lyrics of "You Oughta Know," she pitched a fit,) Shania Twain’s The Woman In Me (from when she really was country,) and Boyz II Men’s II (because I didn’t have enough sense to be angry that they’d dared cover a Beatles song) all in a row.
During this period I had a major bout with depression and relied on music to express my feelings -- there was something therapeutic about screaming along with Alanis. That period ended when I encountered Summerbridge Louisville, an academic enrichment summer program. I tried my "fade-into-the-background" trick as hard as I could, but no one would let it work. They genuinely wanted to know who I really was and what I really liked. I realized then that I didn’t know anymore and I really ought to start finding out.
In the summer of 1996, a college student named Ayodele Carroo was teaching a dance class at Summerbridge. I wasn’t in it, and I barely knew her, but I saw her students rehearse one day. Perhaps "saw" is the wrong word -- I don’t remember a thing about their actual performance; all I remember was the music, a woman singing. I only remembered a few of the words, something about "through this world I’ve stumbled, so many times betrayed" and "I’ll take your breath away," but it struck a deep, powerful chord in me, something that hadn’t happened since The Last of the Mohicans so many years ago. I cornered Dele, as she was called, after her class was done, and asked her what that song was and who sang it. She told me that the singer’s name was Sarah McLachlan, but, true to form, I forgot the title of the song. Several months later, it was ice-skating season and my mother was watching an exhibition when suddenly I heard that song again. Gasping, I dropped whatever it was I was holding and dashed to the living room, where I demanded, "What’s that song called?"
After a chastisement for my abruptness, my mother told me that the song I’d heard was called "Possession" and was indeed by Sarah McLachlan. I wrote the names down this time, and bought the album, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, the next day. For two weeks I didn’t listen to anything but that song.
Then came a family car trip to Philadelphia, and I was in the backseat with a CD player and decided to listen to the entire CD. I was in tears by the end, so deeply had I been moved. I listened to two other CDs the entire time, the Wallflowers’ debut and Sheryl Crow’s self-titled album, but they were afterthoughts. Sarah had my attention. When I got home, I found out she’d released a new album, Surfacing, and went out and bought it as well. Then I started collecting until I had all seven of her major releases.
I was crazy about Sarah’s music, but it drove me even crazier to have people stare at me and say, "Sarah who?" But I held firm; I knew who I was; I knew what I liked, and no one would ever take that from me again. I still liked Alanis and Sheryl, but I decided that I could live without a lot of the rest of my collection and sold much of it off. There were still male singers and male-fronted bands that I loved -- by then I adored the Beatles, Seal, and Semisonic, to name a few, but I realized that I identified much more strongly with the women singers.
I expected that this foray out of the mainstream would force me back into isolation, but to my surprise and pleasure, I found more friends than I’d ever had when I was deliberately trying to fit in. I became comfortable in my own skin after I could truly call it my own.
Since then, I’ve joined an Internet mailing list for Sarah McLachlan fans. My taste in music has gotten even more specialized (read: obscure,) but I’ve made even more friends in a number of states and countries and discovered some wonderful new artists, like Tara MacLean, Dido, and Leah Andreone. My offline social life is thriving, too. True, there are a lot of people who don’t like me and my outspoken opinions, but I imagine that’s partly because they don’t agree and partly because they’re too busy saying that something’s boring instead of shutting up and listening to the rhythm.
Back to Stuff I Wrote.
© Cynthia 2002.