Turning Back the Years

The title I just chose reminds me of a hit song back in the mid-80’s by the group Simply Red — you may remember it — called “Holding Back the Years.” That had a mournful sound to it, swirling with a kind of regret; I’m aiming for a more cheerful tone here.

Sometimes the best presents are gifts that, in a certain way, give you back something you once had. Nobody (except maybe in a movie) can peel back the years and get a “re-do” of a former stage; but certain things can almost make the past breathe again.

My husband did just that for me, this past Christmas, when he gave me a brand new item that enabled me to access a whole lot of old, very thin, black and round items that have stayed in their cardboard square-shaped sleeves over the past five or so decades.

This particular item, in its first iteration back in the 19th century, looked like this:

Beautiful, isn’t it? Invented by Thomas Edison back in 1877, this was originally called a “phonograph” and then sometimes a “gramophone.” Decades later, my mother was spinning her Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, and Louis Armstrong albums in the 1950’s on a “record player” in our living room (I always remember her calling it a “Victrola” though). When my older brothers returned from wherever they’d been — at college, in Peace Corps, first jobs — they filled the room with the sounds of Bob Dylan, the Temptations, Creedence Clearwater Revival.

At Christmas this year, tapping into the services of a downtown record store with an old-fashioned name, https://pitchforkrecordsconcord.com/ my husband gave me a box with this sleek thing inside:

When it’s sitting alone like that, I believe the proper term is a “turntable.” And as I embark upon 2022, it has already started lifting up my heart.

Back I go to get re-acquainted with the albums I’ve hauled with me in a green bin through each of our moves as a couple, and for the decade before that, too. Sure, now I can summon up all the songs on my phone through this new kind of Apple magic; but that experience is a distinctly different experience than the one I used to have: taking the album out gingerly, deciding which side to start with, anticipating a very particular order to the songs, sometimes getting up to move the needle.

Prowling around, I discovered a helpful website called “What Hi-Fi?” with a just-right article, posted on 5/23/19 and written by Becky Roberts which gives a brief history of the changes that have taken place. Here’s the link :https://www.whathifi.com/us/features/a-brief-history-of-the-turntable-and-vinyl-records

Back in the 70’s, as I was getting through high school and then into college, records still ruled. That’s definitely what it felt like then, too. Spinning, spinning, spinning.

How many zillion times did I listen to this one, starting when I was maybe 12?

And there’s my brother Steve’s handwriting on the back of this classic — not that I’m planning to return it now:

Here’s a cover that, almost on its own, conveys the glory of the Queen of Soul:

As I flip through the stack of them, I get glimpses of my former self, the person climbing those stairs up to the dorm rooms, with the radiators pumping too much heat and loud music blaring out of open windows. My mind goes fuzzy when I try to recall if I always had a sound system, back then, if I got help lugging everything up (the records alone were heavy) each semester. A college friend of mine recalls that this was a topic roommates discussed beforehand: who would bring the turntable, the amp, the speakers? A radio alone would not do.

Listening to one of these albums now, I get a sudden urge to arrange a meet-up with the young woman I used to be– maybe on a bench somewhere on campus. I’d get there first and watch her gait as she approached. The actual conversation we’d have would be awkward, to say the least: I might be embarrassed by her lack of confidence coupled with out-of-place boldness, her naivete, her inability to grasp what was most important at that time, her quickness to make judgements she had no real knowledge to make. But I bet she could remind the current me about a few key, core qualities that could use some brushing off these days, too.

And the two of us could definitely find common ground with music. Once I got married and had kids, I kept expanding my tastes; Stan Getz, Tom Waitz, Lucinda Williams, Leon Bridges all came on board. But I can honestly say that there’s not a single album I used to have — still have! — that I’ve “moved on from.”

And this gives me plenty of reason to kick up my own heels.

What are some of your most beloved LPs? Do you have a way to play them now? Please say!