Autumn in the Midwest is a time of tumultuous change. The weather ranges from warm and sunny to cold, rainy and gloomy. We can run the heat and the air conditioning in the same week, sometimes in the same day. I’ve seen snow flurries in early October and mid-70s two weeks before Christmas, which we paid for with 15 inches of snow in January.

The houses and groves that were obscured for three months by eight-foot green corn  are visible once again. The farmers have harvested acres of dried stalks, reducing the fields to vast Viet Cong punji traps. Soybean fields are little more than sawdust now. The leaves turn red, yellow and brown, reminding us of summer’s passing, before they all fall off like a stripper’s outfit. Some asshole will soon be violating local clean-air ordinances and my asthmatic lungs by furtively burning them in his yard, trying to recapture memories of his youth.

I’ve arranged the music in my CD library by genre, alphabetically by artist or composer, and chronologically by season.  Here’s a list of songs that reminds me of the time between mid-September and Thanksgiving.

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (Live) (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young from Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More -1970). Late summer-early fall. The skies are clear blue and the humidity is gone. For years I heard “Asking me said she so free/how can you catch the spiral?” thinking they were singing about football.

Ramblin’ Man: (Allman Brothers Band: Brothers and Sisters-1973). Driving back to Urbana, a big, warm full moon just above the horizon. Life was good.

Green-Eyed Lady: (Sugarloaf, single version
: 1970). Cruisin’ around town, listening to AM radio in Craig’s van. It was cool enough for a light jacket,
warm enough to get into trouble. We found it when he pulled into the local drive-in restaurant and ordered “a waitress with nothing on it.” The owner stormed out. “Goddam kids, get the hell out of my parking lot.”

Midnite Cruiser: (Steely Dan: Can’t Buy a Thrill-1972) “No time is better than now.” We wouldn’t realize that until way too late.

Maggie May: (Rod Stewart: Every Picture Tells A Story-1971). Released in October of that year, the long version features Martin Quittenton’s guitar intro. It’s every horny high school boy’s fantasy.

Animal Zoo: (Spirit: Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus-1970). Oh no, something went wrong / Well you’re much too fat and a little too long. This song, along with the pseudo-orgasmic Morning Will Come made this album a campus cult classic in 1973.

No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature: (The Guess Who: The Best of The Guess Who-1970). Lonely feeling deep inside / Find a corner where I can hide. It’s Friday night at the Homecoming bonfire. You can see her face glowing in the firelight, the soft sweater over her breasts and you can imagine the fresh smell of her hair. But you’re not one of the cool kids. You’re in the background and she doesn’t know how you feel. High school was never so cruel.

Glad: (Traffic: John Barleycorn Must Die-1970). I like this, if for no other reason, it was used in a short film from The Best of the 1974 New York Erotic Film Festival. A sweet young thing, a pro football game playing on an old color TV, the one with the picture tube shaped like a fishbowl, and erotic acts with a soccer ball.

Gimme Shelter: (Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed-1969). Few things are more chilling than Merry Clayton singing, “Rape, murder. It’s just a shot away,” on this apocalyptic song, which was also used in a Red Cross PSA and the Call of Duty Black Ops trailer, “There’s a Soldier in All of Us.”

 
Hellbound Train (Savoy Brown: Hellbound Train-1972). This was a fitting song for late October: a lost soul’s journey on the train to Hell. It starts out with a slow, mournful resignation, becoming louder, faster and inevitable. The LP version stopped abruptly, adding to the creep factor. The US CD release fades out, which I discovered only after I’d dumped my vinyl copy. The original ending is on The Savoy Brown Collection.

Friends and Gallows Pole (Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin III-1970). Friends minor overtones is a desperate drive through a cold, dark rain.  Gallows Pole reminds me of the illustrations for Alfred Noyes’ poem, The Highwayman, which I read in the World Book Encyclopedia’s Childcraft Series. Here’s a live version.

Battle of Evermore: (Led Zeppelin: Untitled fourth album-1971). Another Tolkien-inspired song: The Queen of Light, the Prince of Peace, the Dark Lord and the ring wraiths. The common folk “pick up your swords and fly.”

Tangled Up in Blue and Lily, Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts: (Bob Dylan: Blood on the
Tracks-1975). Dylan is a master of telling long, complicated stories in a few verses. Dylan’s son, Jakob, feels the album is “my parents talking,” though Dylan denies any autobiographical meaning. There have been two screenplays written for Lily, Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts, but none of them have been produced. I imagined the story told through a series of those unreal 3-D slides for the old View Master.

Bad Side of the Moon (Elton John: 11-17-70-1971). It’s cold, dark and damp outside, but if you were one of the 125 lucky people in the A&R Recording Studio in New York City on November 17, 1970, it was pretty toasty as some 23-year old kid named Elton John blew them away.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald: (Gordon Lightfoot: Summertime Dream-1976). The haunting song about the Edmund Fitzgerald, a
bulk iron-ore freighter which broke up and sank during a storm on Lake Superior, November 10, 1975. None of the 29 crew survived. On July 17, 1999 the wreck’s site was consecrated and deemed off-limits to divers during a private ceremony attended by family and Gordon Lightfoot. This year marks the 40^th anniversary.

Be it sight, sound, the smell, the touch.
There’s something inside that we need so much.

“Departure”
Graeme Edge-1968

I got stranded on a two lane blacktop outside Champaign, Illinois on an unusually warm spring afternoon in 1974. I sat by the side of the road while waiting for help, listening to the light traffic on nearby Interstate 74. Having nothing better to do, I surveyed the landscape: the newly planted fields; the few clouds on the horizon; a few tiger lilies blooming along the shoulder. The relative silence was comforting, leaving me alone with just my thoughts.

Forty-one years later I was driving from Dayton, Ohio to Chicago because bad weather had cancelled all flights to and from O’Hare. I’d rented a nice new Chevy Impala in Dayton, so I traveled in comfort with the air and the sound system blasting. But as I drove through Champaign I decided to get off the interstate near the same area where I’d been stranded. It brought back the memories of that afternoon and the sights and sounds I took for granted before life became an endless cycle of work, sleep and trying to make sense of life.

I fear those experiences are lost on a generation glued to their smartphones, shutting out the world with their earbuds. They appear to fear the absence of natural sound, light and constant interaction as if they will miss something monumental should they look away for even a moment.

So, before it’s too late, take my advice. Nourish your senses before they atrophy.

Find a rural road, far from a city or town. Stop, get out of the car and just listen. There’s no city traffic noise. No radios or TVs or stereos blaring from someone’s window. All you can hear is a few insects buzzing like a high-voltage wire, maybe a breeze going through the cornfields, and the occasional car. The sound gradually grows as the car nears. It passes with that familiar but very solitary rumble, gravel crunching if it strays too near the shoulder, then fades in the distance. The day’s heat becomes almost audible, the waves rising from the asphalt and the mind trying to fill in the sound gaps. The silence makes you think; makes you far more aware of what’s around you.

I remember the smell of sheets hanging from a clothes line, gently waving in the breeze when I was five years old. I was small enough to lay in one like a hammock and look up at the sky, watching the few clouds drift by. Put up a single line and hang some towels or shirts. Rub your face in them when they are dry. Fabric softener can’t come close to creating that smell.

Go out in a forest or field in the middle of nowhere in the winter and listen to the almost imperceptible sound as the snow falls. The air is cold and the scent is comforting, and again, almost audible. There’s that soft crunch as you walk through the snow, competing with the sound of your breathing, magnified by the hood around your ears. Remember those winters past, when you would play until the light faded and dinner awaited.

A summer thunderstorm washes the air, leaving a fresh aroma and a stillness broken only by the sound of tires running through the puddles on the streets. It’s a smell one is hard pressed to experience living in the city, but it’s possible. Go out to a park after a good rain. Hear the water dripping on the leaves and revel in the new found atmospheric purity.

In the fall the wind makes the dried leaves that haven’t fallen from the trees rattle like a rain stick and the ones swirling on the ground scratch like mice feet in an attic. If you are outside raking, stop. Close your eyes and open your ears. This is the annual death many fear, but it is temporary. Life will resurrect in the spring.

I never believe a babbling brook existed until I stumbled onto one outside of Conway, New Hampshire. I’d stopped by the side of the road near the Swift River and wandered into the woods. I heard what I thought was a radio playing All Things Considered, but the words were unintelligible. I went a little farther and found a shallow creek running over thousands of smooth stones—the source of those “voices.” It was warm, pleasant and inviting, like a family gathering. If you are lucky enough to find a babbling brook, sit by its side and maybe it will tell you something.

The closest I’ve come to absolute silence was 3000 feet in the air, slowly drifting back towards the ground under a parachute. I was in college; it was the first time I’d ever jumped. The pilot sang Casey Jones as we took off. “Flyin’ my plane, high on cocaine.” I was first in line for the drop since I’d been the last one on. As we neared the drop site, the door flew up to the overhead wing.

“Hold onto the strut. Put your left foot on the platform and let your right foot dangle.”

That was simple enough.

“Now let go.”

At first I floundered like Wile E. Coyote falling off the butte, but within a couple of seconds the static line had pulled my rip cord and the chute opened. I couldn’t hear the plane. I couldn’t hear any birds or wind.  There was nothing but silence, an oddly comforting science. I imagine that was the Zen definition of “being one with nature.” Landing on the ground was almost a disappointment.

If you are too scared to strap on a parachute, go out to Colorado Springs and drive up Pikes Peak. This is where Katherine Lee Bates was inspired to write “America the Beautiful.” Ponder the purple mountains majesty in the distance and the fruited plain below and do not be surprised at the tears in your eyes.

Light pollution has become so bad that governments are creating “dark-sky preserves” so we can see that which we took for granted 50 years ago. Drive into the darkness of the countryside on a clear night, far away from the lights of civilization. Look up into the sky at the billions of stars. Your problems pale when set against such a sight.

Do this while you can still appreciate it.

Departure
Be it sight, sound, smell, or touch,
There’s something inside, that we need so much.
The sight of a touch, or the scent of a sound,
Or the strength of an oak, with roots deep in the ground.
The wonder of flowers, to be covered, and then to burst up,
Through tarmac, to the sun again.
Or to fly to the sun without burning a wing;
To lie in a meadow and hear the grass sing;
To have all these things in our memory’s hoard
And to use them,
To help us,
to find…… Continue reading →