It is strange to think that I will never experience the birth of
Led Zeppelin and
The Beatles and
their likes
just as their birth into the world was experienced

When I grew up,
I was used to the electric guitar
their music was very often in the background
no reason for it to stand out when it was used as
white noise.

So, when I really sat down for the first time and
listened,
I listened with appreciation
but not surprise.

I grew up with them.
I never discovered them with the rest of my generation.
We never had them as a bond
as the generation did a just a few decades before us;
back then,
when it was bop
and Sinatra
and all the white-washed music that owned the people

I will never get to experience
what it was like
discovering the concept of this electrified guitar,
used with violence and melody,
weaving beautifully complex lines of music
twisting them together with the drums of africa, of the middle east
the voice of the wailing mourners of the desert
the trance of the east
the anarchy of the repressed west
the voice of a revolution

Page
Harrison
Howe
Manzarek
and the endless list…

that is something my imagination can go only so far in understanding;
the first time discovering this entirely new genre of music,
a moment I will never experience.

 

af