Picture the scene: an angelic looking three year old with golden ringlets and baby blue eyes tears her mother a new asshole for failing to properly position the sock on her tiny foot. The line is irritating her baby toe. Why do these socks have no ruffles? This outfit is unsatisfactory. The underlying meaning is clear: the three year old is in charge, and no one is happy.
I am that three year old, or at least I was, years before I learned what “obsessive compulsive” or “pain in the ass” meant, and even further removed from the psychiatric treatment that would make me slightly more tolerable as a human being. My mother, bless her heart, was always willing to be there for me as I worked through my ridiculousness, but our personalities were too similar when it came to such sensitive matters as getting dressed in the morning.
Into this picture stepped my dad, who, after overhearing this mess for about fifteen minutes, decided this was no longer a job for my mom. He finished the routine for the morning and then, later that day, instituted his own routine, which would establish my morning time rhythm for the next two decades.
It started with picking out my outfit for the day on the evening before. I could pick anything I wanted – however mismatched or absurd – but I had to stick with it. There was no changing it on the fly in the morning when I decided I no longer wanted to wear the duck costume with the Mary Janes. That immediately eliminated the worst of the morning arguments and really was, as I look back on it, a stroke of genius. The next, and most crucial, piece of the routine happened when he woke me up in the morning, carried me downstairs still wrapped in my blanket, laid me on the couch, and asked what I wanted to listen to.
I grew up surrounded by music. I know it’s the kind of cliché you hear in every musician’s bio, as they describe their coming of age in the midst of band practices and recording sessions, but it was true for me even in my family of teachers and doctors and other decidedly unmusical professionals. My mom was the kind of fan who found a favorite song and played it on repeat for hours, often days, on end. To this day, the songs most etched into my brain are usually the ones she played ad nauseum in the car on the way to the bus stop or in the bathroom as she got ready for work or church. My dad, on the other hand, was more of a connoisseur. He also loved music, but for him it was almost a moral pursuit, a reflection of one’s very essence, and one’s musical taste could reasonably be used as a measuring stick for their decency as a person.
All of which brings us back to the morning. Tom Waits’ “Rain Dogs” had been released in 1985 and was a recent favorite of my dad’s when I was starting preschool. As anyone who has listened to Mr. Waits knows, he has a way with words and can come up with quite the turn of phrase. My dad and I have always had fun playing with words and laughing at the myriad ways you can put them together, so Tom Waits was right up our alley. Phrases like “inside a broken clock” and “I sleep in your hat” were ripe for analysis and laughter, so we relished listening to these songs. As a result, “Rain Dogs – side B” was my most frequent request.
I would lay on the couch and watch my dad, in the dim morning light out of the corner of my eye, as he removed the vinyl from its slip cover, placed it on the turntable, and cued up “Rain Dogs” for us. That opening accordion would start to play, my dad would come get me dressed, and I would breathe in his Old Spice after shave and sleepily get ready to start my day.
Some days it would be Elton John, others it would be David Bowie, and still others it would be Pink Floyd. But more often than not, it was Tom Waits with “Rain Dogs” and “Gun Street Girl.” And in later years, it would be more Tom Waits from other albums, and we would cackle at how Tom would describe someone as “a spent piece of used jet trash” or insist that “the piano has been drinking…not me.”
Along with my family, music would continue to be my savior as I grew up and refused to deal with the underlying issues that made getting me dressed such a chore in the first place. I would listen to Fine Young Cannibals as I struggled to breathe even though there was nothing wrong with my lungs. I’d cry over missing my mom and intrusive thoughts of her untimely demise as I reminisced about dancing to Bonnie Raitt with her and my sister. When the teenage years came and my depression veered into suicidal territory, Tupac talked me through it and repeatedly convinced me to keep my head up. Even my recovery, in all its phases, had its own soundtrack, from Bob Marley to Frank Ocean to Kendrick Lamar, and I can confidently say that without this music I would not be here today.
This blog, in whatever forms it ends up manifesting itself, is my attempt to reckon with all these memories and how they are tied up with the music that is inextricably linked with them. I’ve read that smell is the sense most closely tied to memory, but for me, music has an intrinsic connection with my recollections of the past that nothing else does. I’m hoping that, in the effort to wrestle with all of this messiness, I can come to a better understanding of who I am, and maybe even bring a little music to the lives of others. As Tom Waits assured me all those years ago, “we’ve always been out of our minds,” and that is exactly the kind of encouragement I need. For I am a rain dog too.
