The Beat Goes On and Other Heart Songs
In my songbook I’ve learned mostly this: Perform like Queen. Write like John and Paul. Party like Jimmy Buffet. Love like James Taylor. Dress like Elton John when you must. Cry it out like Aretha, and keep on going like Keith Richards.
Aren’t we all born humming an ancient, steady drumbeat we barely notice that keeps us marching over time? Is it just me?
My dad was my first baritone, a beautiful, sonorous voice wasted inside the shower. Full and deep, it bent me to emotion, made me get up and dance even though he was rarely singing to me.
Like a dog startled awake, I shot to attention for melodies wherever I went, drank in rhythms and sang them back before I was able to sit up. My song was often shy but ever hopeful, ballads filling my mind since conception.
There was Day Tripper on the 45, the needle scratching, my mother yelling not to jump unless I wanted to ruin everything. Which I did. And I found out. Yes, I found out.
On the eight track Billy Joel’s Stranger ran on a loop. I didn’t heed his advice.
I bought the house in Hackensack. But he was right. No one really should ever argue with a crazy ma ma mama mama. I do. I do know by now. I just didn’t imagine I’d be her.
Neil Diamond was Daddy’s favorite and we’d Sweet Caroline in traffic for what seemed like hours so that two decades after he’s gone, I still have to belt it out, cry and feel every inch of his loss through the joy he sang to me with. Bum bum bum. So good. So good.
Mom and I liked Simon. Also Garfunkel.
I’m a sucker for harmony and a clever turn of phrase. Rhymin’ Simon lets the music take him, doesn’t need it to make perfect sense, and can sing that most American tune. A boxer for sure.
My sister and I sang for Air Supply and Gloria Gainor and Donna Summer and the Bee Gees with our hairbrush microphones. We had all our life to live and all our love to give and we learned how to get along. On weekends we waited for Danny Terio to be Solid Gold and listened to Casey Kasem’s top 40 so we could keep up-to-date with the charts and learn about love and loss through those long distance dedications.
In high school I did drugs with Motley Crue, Led Zeppelin and an awful band named WASP. I made them sweat. I made them groove. And then of course I crashed and burned. I found solace in the Who and understanding in Pink Floyd until Roger Waters called me a pig. Aren’t we all born on the Dark Side of the Moon?
In college I dressed down and embraced the angst. Packing a specialized pseudo leather suitcase of cassettes, I coffeehoused my way up the northeast corridor with Helen Reddy, the Indigo Girls and Melissa Etheridge keeping me weighty company. I wasn’t sure what I was so aggrieved about, but boy did they know I was angry. And hurting. To hell with the man. Hit the road, Jack.
I moondanced into love a few times over Van Morrison, and had sex with people who demanded an answer to Rod Stewart’s ear worm of a question. Sure, if it makes you feel better, I find you sexy. Love your body. There, Sugar. I let you know.
I fell hard for the Singer/Songwriters in my twenties when anything seemed possible, when the long road I traveled might just start paying off one of these days as the Boss said. For album after album.
I had Alanis Morissette when I needed to vent. And for blues, in order to supplement Billie Holliday, there was alway the goddess, Ms. Bonnie Raitt.
I made love to Marvin Gaye’s deep souled moan, and also to John Mayer’s delicate fingering. A wonderland indeed.
I met a man who preferred elevator music instrumentals. He kept a mixed tape of 1980s television themes in his Toyota Corrola. I married him in an instant. We upgraded to CDs.
I heard my sons’ heartbeat and it was a rhythm I recognized as my own siren song that I would chase into any eddy. I sang them a Tom Petty lullaby that promised them they were alright for now. They don’t know how with him, I learned to fly and even when I wasn’t a good girl, and I didn’t like horses, too, he didn’t do me like that. Tom, like my dad, taken from us too soon.
I shoved my boys into car seats for therapeutic rides where I filled the backseat with my gut level melodies. Windows rolled down, the car shook with our voices. Music played while we dressed. Music played while I cooked. Music played over homework and softly while I was on the phone.
In my thirties, I found chanting Hebrew prayers oddly comforting because I was right in my twenties. Everything — good or bad — is possible.
I’ve eaten overpriced pretzels watching the best bands play for the last half century. With dedicated friends, I hopped around the tristate area, never saying no. I got to see the Rolling Stones every decade for the last three. I said goodbye to Shea Stadium with Maestro Billy Joel and his special guest and good friend, Sir Paul McCartney.
The reunions were great too. The Police. Fleetwood Mac; Stevie Nicks spinning around the stage. Landslide constantly dogging me and Lindsey Buckingham, while Stevie stayed untouched and unafraid of changing.
Once, I saw Meatloaf at the beach. I purged myself of every toxic man who ever pretended anyone was paradise by the dashboard lights, who swore they’d do anything for love. Even did that.
I’ve seen U2 a billion times because they’re pretty good and my friend worships them. Bono says when people come to a show, they are actually replaying the moment in their life when the music belonged to them. Right you are, sir. Right you are. Love is indeed a Temple.
In my forties I found meditation. A moment to center my heart around the deep echo of my own radiating gong. It is everything.
It’s not Curious George or Raffi singing about Baby Belugas keeping me company in the backseat of my car, but it’s never silent.
A few years ago I picked up an autoharp. Like June Carter Cash, I strum my 36 string beauty and feel its reverberation through my chest and out my vocal chords. It’s one thing to listen; another to create, even when both are equally valid.
This language so boldly offered as a gift, will stream madly on, beyond my hearing and throughout my last moments. My mother, hobbled by dementia, hummed tunes I didn’t know she had. Bing Crosby. Tony Bennet. Happy Birthday in Polish. Voices from her youth. I got to sing with her for as long as this lifetime allowed. It wasn’t nearly enough, but I’m infinitely grateful.
My musical vernacular is dense and poetic with the catchiest chorus. I find solace in these melodies. They don’t mind when my makeup isn’t done. Or that I’m fat. They fail to register that few things on my list ever get finished. They’re not concerned with how rich I am. Or how poor. Don’t even care that I’m getting old — music pays out perpetual returns — its own fundamental, unbreakable connection. A refrain stretched out as long as life remains.
In my songbook I’ve learned mostly this: Perform like Queen. Write like John and Paul. Party like Jimmy Buffet. Love like James Taylor. Dress like Elton John when you must. Cry it out like Aretha, and keep on going like Keith Richards.
