Summer Babe

I saw Pavement last night. That is part of the reason I am awake at 6 am with a sore throat. Standing outside next to a tree for three hours let me inhale way too much pollen. Or I have strep throat. Illness aside. I had a great time. It made me nostalgic. My sister introduced me to Pavement when I was probably 15 or 16. I liked them but it wasn't until college that they really grew on me. I think my friend Eric had an influence on me liking them so much. We had a complicated (to say the least) relationship and I used to torture myself in the times when we weren't talking by listening to the music he loved. The music he introduced me to that I also really really loved. I used to feel like an impostor when it came to my music taste because so much of what I listen to was introduced to me by my sister or a boy. Eric and I are still sort-of friends but he certainly doesn't have the pull over my life that he used to have. But I still love the music.

I have always had, in my opinion, very good taste in music. (With the exception of a brief disco phase although I will still stand by that if I have to.) But if a guy liked a band that was great, it made me like them even more. I think I gravitated toward music that made feel and if music was associated with someone who also made me feel it was even more important to me. That or Eric had really great taste in music. Maybe both.
Standing under the pollen tree last night. It was inevitable that I would think of Eric. I thought at the time that I memorized the words to Gold Soundz over a week of listening to it on repeat because it reminded me of him. We had talked about the lyrics one day and I will forever associate "So drunk in the August sun" with him. I think now that I burned these songs into my memory to comfort myself. Eric and I did not have healthy communication patterns. This was a way I could feel like I was communicating with him, that we were connected even when I wasn't really speaking to him.

I learned some very valuable lessons about myself and relationships because or Eric but one of the biggest gifts he gave me was music. I'm sure I introduced him to some bands as well, but it was the feelings we had at the time combined with the music, that makes me stand under a tree, ignoring the allergies, with hundreds of other people standing there with me and still feel a personal connection with the people on stage, because unknowingly they played a huge role in this formative part of my life.

I like to think I like music for its merit alone, but I think some of its merit can certainly be how it makes you feel or what it makes you think. I definitely pay more attention to lyrics than the music itself which I know makes me a bad music fan in some people's eyes but I disagree. With every art form we need an access point. I am much more experienced and adept with words than music. It makes sense that words are how I access music. It doesn't mean they are the only thing that matters to me. If David Berman's lyrics were sung in auto-tune with boring beats I would probably not like Silver Jews. Eric was my access point for a lot of music but years later, the music is still here and so am I.