Just Like the Old Days

 Los Angeles, California (Yay! Finally, it's time for pumpkins!!)

So, I'm driving around town in my car and still listening to John Mellencamp's music. I haven't put together a playlist yet. That will be a recreation of the setlist he did at the Hollywood Bowl. It is a huge playlist. Something like eighteen songs. He didn't talk a lot in between songs, so he got in a lot of his music. For now, I just random play some of his songs which are now in my iTunes library.

As I'm driving and listening, I'm remembering a time back in 1975, after seeing The Rolling Stones, driving around in my Audi with all the windows down and the local radio stations playing a whole lot of Stones as they were still in town performing. After seeing Paul Simon's Farewell Tour in 2018, I was listening to Paul Simon a lot. It was such a great concert, I just wanted to keep reliving it.

So on a recent day, as I was driving along a boulevard, coming home from running some errands, I was grooving on Small Town, Pink Houses, and Hurts So Good. And even enjoying the rather misogynistic I Need a Lover (it was another time).

For some reason, while I had the music cranked up, a strong memory came to me. It was a year or two before the time of that Stones concert. My parents were out of town and I was housesitting.  I was driving home from my part-time job to meet my boyfriend, David, at my parents' home. On the way, I stopped at Dale's market and bought steak, chicken, salad, potatoes for baking, everything needed for sandwiches, beer and both red and white wine. We were spending a weekend together mostly in my parents' pool.

I was driving my VW, which preceeded the Audi, and had the music cranked up. And, oddly, I remember listening to Alice Cooper's School's Out. It was just the start of summer. And school was out for us, having finished our first year (or maybe two) of college. After I arrived home, David arrived with albums: Allman Brothers' Eat a Peach; Loggins and Messina Sitting In; probably some Bowie and Stones.

The thing about that memory is that I remember the feeling of it so intensely. And strangely, or maybe not so, listening to Mellencamp and looking forward to going to a Dodgers' game with Joel that evening felt exactly the same. The same groove to the music and the same excitement about the coming evening with the guy. Different music. Different car. Different guy. Same feeling.

I love that I can recapture those memories and feel what that felt like. I love that I can experience the same feelings in a different decade. I love that at this time, I can look backwards and curiously realize that I had no idea that this many years later I could still feel this way. And also knowing that, in given circumstances, I will always feel this way.

At the concert, I recorded a video of Mellencamp singing Hurts So Good. It was the last song he played. And when I played it for my friends, Todd and Christopher, I noticed that I could hear myself singing. It is wild! I have videos of me dancing, but I don't do karaoke. Still, there I am, singing at the top of my voice that it Hurts So Good. And that's what I'm still doing in my car, although maybe not quite at the top of my voice. But I'm feeling the joy that I have always felt in recapturing a concert experience by listening to the artist's music, hile driving which, granted, is not quite as much fun as it used to be. Although the Tesla experience is a cool cruise while singing along. Ok, for me now, school is out for good. But, I'm happy to report that the music still plays on. It always will. And so will those same evocative feelings that come from the experience of relishing it.