I ended up having that “Baker Street” song stuck in my head for more than two weeks. I got a copy of the song, which I played the shit out of, then got a copy of the Foo Fighters cover, which is phenomenal, but it stayed in my brain, refusing to pass through with time. This doesn’t really bother me, because there are far worse songs that can squat in my head.
One thing did bother me during my 100 playbacks of “Baker Street,” however: It just didn’t sound right. Granted, I probably haven’t heard the entire song since the late 70s, only snippets on “The Simpsons” or “Good Will Hunting” (I love that fight scene), but even after all these years I could tell something was wrong.
I struggled to figure out what was different, then it dawned on me — I’m used to hearing this song on a crappy little transistor radio, sitting outside at the community pool with my mom, smelling her Tropical Sun oil and feeling chlorine sting my eyes. This is how I experienced many 70s radio hits; my ears aren’t accustomed to hearing this song in stereo, much less with good sound. (Just like I can’t imagine hearing Queen’s “Body Language” unless it’s on the distortion-graced jukebox the community pool eventually installed.)
So much music is like that for me — forever attached to one format. For instance, when I first bought “Kiss My Ass,” I really dug the Dinosaur Jr. cover of “Goin’ Blind” … but it really bothered me, too. Jay Mascis seemed to do the song justice, but I kept thinking he left something out — maybe an entire stanza — and it bugged the shit out of me. Only after months of listening did I realize this was the first time I’d ever heard the song without the interruption of an 8-track program change. The fade-out, loud-ass CACHINK!, fade-in was an integral part of the tunage — I never had heard any song from “Hotter Than Hell” on anything but 8-track. I still don’t like hearing that song without the break.
Other it-has-to-be-on-8-track albums include Led Zeppelin’s “Houses of the Holy” and Funkadelic’s “Tales of Kidd Funkadelic”, which incidentally was my first bargain purchase, sitting in the 8-track discount bin at Wal-Mart. (My first cutout album was Rod Stewart’s “Blondes Have More Fun.”)
As I try to re-create my vinyl and cassette collections on my laptop (the originals are in storage in the States), I am reminded of how connected songs become to their medium. This is part of what will get lost, I fear, as digital becomes the only format. My brain wants to hear the garbled-tape static in a few old Modern English songs on tapes worn to hell over the course of two invincible teenage summers, or add just a tad of overplayed-vinyl crackle to the Replacements‘ “Answering Machine.” It’s the imperfections you start to miss. I won’t hesitate to buy nine inch nails on CD, but make it vinyl for those old Tom Waits albums, please.
Does anyone else have tunage forever linked to a certain medium in their hearts and minds?
sid world headquarters
PJ | 03-May-05 at 4:14 am | Permalink
I remember going home from a pub to a friend’s house in Ireland, and she put on an old cassette taped from vinyl of Beatles — the really early stuff. It was on a tiny little player, like I had when I was 12. The sound was cheap and tinny like on my Emerson suitcase (look that one up). I just sat in silence next to the player while the others carried on. Nice moment.
Jodi | 03-May-05 at 3:02 pm | Permalink
I will forever associate Kenny Rogers, Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond with vinyl. I particularly remember being 5 years old, dancing around the living room with an imaginary partner to “Lady” by Mr. Chicken himself. Thanks, Mom, for making me a sappy romantic before I understood what a vagina was.
RONIN | 05-May-05 at 12:14 am | Permalink
The first two Black Sabbath albums wil never sound as good as they did the first time I heard them on vinyl….
JK | 05-May-05 at 11:54 pm | Permalink
My dad sat me down in front of the console stereo when I got my learner’s permit and played Simon & Garfunkel’s “Baby Driver” for me on vinyl. I’m still afraid to get a CD copy of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
When I went through my Glam period during high school/college in the late nineties, I found so much on vinyl that couldn’t be found elsewhere that it became my primary medium for a few years. Any of Marc Bolan’s album’s, especially “Dandy in the Underworld” and “Ride a White Swan,” don’t even work in a digital medium.
MAN I wish I had my record player here!
sid | 06-May-05 at 12:04 am | Permalink
JK: I missed you! One of the first songs I ever jammed to was “Baby Driver” … though I’m talking about the KISS song. I still have “Bridge Over Troubled Water” on a scratched-up 45 and I can’t imagine hearing it any other way.
Jodi: Nice way to get “Kenny Rogers” and “vagina” in the same thought. Leave that message on his answering machine and I’m sure he’ll spank it for days.
Crackity | 07-May-05 at 10:22 am | Permalink
My first Stevie Ray Vaughan album, “Texas Flood,” will always sound best on vinyl. Fortunately it’s been around long enough that it has been reissued on vinyl. It’s even on 180-gram, a big step up from the thin stuff they were pressing in the mid to late ’80s. It’s a good thing, too, because I played the shit out the the first copy I owned. I’ve never owned the Eagles’ “Hotel California” or Neil Young’s “After The Gold Rush” on anything but 8-track.
Stacy | 13-May-05 at 12:07 am | Permalink
I think similar sound association is in play when you hear a song you have on CD (or tape, or MP3, or vinyl, or 8-track …) on the radio. Even if you JUST played it in your house, if you get in the car and hear the same damn song, to me it always sounds better on the radio.* Something about the spontaneity, I think.
* DISCLAIMER: This never happens to me anymore, because there ain’t no music on the radio, just shit n’ wind.
Sharon | 13-May-05 at 11:21 pm | Permalink
I used to tape songs off the radio when I was a kid, because I had a pathetic allowance and couldn’t afford many albums. So many of my favorite singles from the ’80s just don’t sound right now, because they don’t catch a bit of the weather report at the end, or the Greaseman yelling, or Casey Kasem’s nasally voice saying, “There it is, the No. 1 song of the week.”