Editorial: Music Saves (by Lance Burson)

Waylon and Willie weren't Lance Burson's uncles; but it would have been an easy mistake for him to make.

Editor’s Note: This is going to be a lengthy introduction to an in-depth piece. This is the first contribution to DeadJournalist.com by Lance Burson. I’ve been trying to find the right way to introduce him and his voice to this site for a few months. And just after the holidays, I knew how to do it.

Chuck

Editorial: Music Saves
by Lance Burson

All of my memories are associated with music. You can call that music snobbery, or maybe musicology. I just think of it as  being in love with music. I don’t get it from my parents. They liked music. While they had favorite bands or singers, they didn’t live for songs – the pieces of art that soothed and saved your soul.

As a kid you are beholden to what your family listens. My first, real, vivid, memories start at age six. I recall walking through the house with a football in my hands, and “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” would begin the on 8-track. It was the first song on Wanted! The Outlaws, performed by Waylon Jennings. My parents loved that album. For a while, when I was six and seven, I thought Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson were my uncles or cousins. I spent so much time with their voices, I felt like I knew them.

Later that fall, my aunt and uncle, who were several years younger than my parents, would play Led Zeppelin in their car 8-track player. It sounded like an army of guitars were coming for my soul. To say they captured it is an understatement. Kashmir would orchestrate my dreams almost every night. That Christmas I got two 45s, Billy Joel’s Piano Man, and Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I thought Joel and John were brothers since they both played the piano and they were on the radio all the time. That was my classical music. I would “air piano” in the car and in my room.

This is where I started breaking away from my parents and their beach music, country stuff and light pop. By the time Rumors by Fleetwood Mac was released (a record my parents had, but I listened to more) I had developed my own taste. My parents will tell you they lost me. I was never theirs anyway.

I belonged to my mind and my music.

I am the father of three daughters, aged six, seven and a teenager who turns 15 next week. I swore, when I had kids, that I would introduce them to music – make them appreciate it – and see if they fell in love as I did.

So far, the results are mixed.

My teenager thinks hip hop, rap and the poppiest of pop like Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, etc are the greatest genres. I gave her Radiohead’s The Bends, right after I met her almost three years ago (we are a blended family). I told her it changed my mind about music after I heard it and I wanted her to know why. She listened to it, liked some songs, but decided it wasn’t for her, right now.

She still has the CD. I don’t want it back. I know, as she grows, older, gets more rebellious, changes friends, and changes her mind about everything, she’ll want something with more depth than a Taylor Swift album. She has The Bends.

Parenting is love and instinct. I compliment my mom and dad for never standing in the way of my love affair with music. I try to do the same with my kids. My seven-year-old is more like me, she doesn’t show singing or instrumental talent, but she listens intently. I like how she will comb through my CD’s, pick up a Counting Crows song she enjoys, jump around to some Elvis Costello, then get in the car and sing Ke$ha at the top of her lungs with her sisters.

My youngest is a savant. She sings everything. I’m going to the bathroom can be made into a two minute pop tune by her. She also dances while she stands still. She is so artistic, it’s beautiful. She doesn’t possess taste for music as much as she likes stuff she can sing and dance too. She is literally a walking talking “American Bandstand” record review. If it has a good beat, and it’s something she can dance to, she’ll give it a 93.

I try to follow all of this when I introduce them to music. For the six-year-old, I will play Madonna, or melodic pop rock and she sings and dances. The seven-year-old, I give her everything I have – she picks and chooses her own collection – then talks about what she likes avidly.

The teenager and I just talk about music. She is set in her own ways right now but when we are in the car together – or hanging out – I’ll pick music or suggest bands and groups that I think sound like something she would like and then let her make up her own mind.

The soundtrack of my life has changed a lot since 1976. Waylon and Willie aren’t in my house but Billy Joel and Fleetwood Mac occasionally visit. The pride I have as a parent – and my wife, a music fan too – is my children have a range of influences to draw from. Rap and Hip hop didn’t exist when I was six or seven years old. I will sometimes tell my teenager about ’70s R&B, and what song is providing the sample or beat for the latest tune she enjoys. She acts like I’m old and stupid, but every once-in-a-while I will hear her tell a friend the information she got from mom and dad.

Indoctrination is a crime, and I don’t commit such an act. Ignoring the importance of music, it’s impact, the joy it can provide, is an even greater sin. I refuse to have that happen. Do I cringe at the Swift, Perry, Ke$ha and flavor of the month hip hop? Sure. What I don’t do is worry that not loving The Clash or The Ramones at the ages my kids are now will hurt them.

I have to go now. My kids get home soon. I need to replace their pop CD’s with early ’90s grunge and hard rock. Nirvana should fit nicely inside the Rhianna case.

Editor’s Note: Lance Burson is a contributor to DeadJournalist.com. He also writes his own blog which you can read here and you can follow him on Twitter: @TLanceB.