Add a Little Music to your Life

Last Saturday, my FBG and I, along with 18,000 middle aged surfer boys and California Girls, made our way to the Hollywood Bowl to enjoy a night of nostalgia listening to the Beach Boys. We sang and danced to car songs, school songs, songs about girls, and songs about the beach. Good vibrations abounded. (Did you like how I worked two Beach Boys song titles into this paragraph?) A fine time was had by all. How can a night of music and memories under the stars be anything but wonderful?

My standard bad phone picture

I don’t know about you, but music has always been a big part of my life. I remember listening to 1950’s music on a big stereo console that my parents had when I was a little girl. They played everyone from Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, to Ray Charles and Harry Belafonte as well as Broadway show tunes. I knew all the words and sang along, but that was their music.

Then, when I was around 8 years old, I had to be in the hospital for a few nights for some tests. I was crying the first night because I was scared. There was an older girl in the bed next to me and she told me if I was quiet she would turn on the radio. She clicked it on and all of the sudden I heard a kind of music my parents didn’t play. The station was KFWB and the music was early 60’s rock and roll. And I loved it! Back home, I somehow ended up with a radio in my bedroom, and it was always on when I was in there with my music. It looked something like this:

http://www.loti.com/radio/md-images/DSCF0019.JPG

Over the years, my taste in music has changed. I no longer listen to the Beatles, Monkees, Supremes, or Paul Revere and The Raiders on AM radio, but music still plays in the background of my life. These days my taste in music runs to country, with a bit of classic rock, and on Sundays, I love to sing praise songs and old hymns. To me, music means memories.

And this brings me back to the Beach Boys. I have a special place in my heart for them. They weren’t my favorite group, but they were (and still are) my FBG’s all time favorite group. Their songs have been part of our married memories for so many years. He has played them on vinyl records, cassettes, cds, and now on his Ipod. I always smile when I hear him singing “don’t worry baby” in the garage when he doesn’t know I can hear him. Sweet.

So, I wish I could personally thank the Beach Boys for all the happiness they have given my hubby and me.  I guess the Hollywood Bowl concert will be the closest I will ever get to them. But you know what? That was pretty darn good.

“Funny how a melody sounds like a memory,
Like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night”

~Eric Church “Springsteen”