Warning: Non-technical, sappy post ahead!
I’ve been in love with Led Zeppelin’s music since my uncle Bill let me bang around on his white Les Paul around the age of 8. He clapped some big headphones on my ears, put on Led Zeppelin IV and I distinctly remember immediately feeling like the world had changed for me. I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face. Every note was so powerful and heavy (emotionally and otherwise). As a kid I couldn’t have articulated this in any meaningful way, but the vast emotional distance between Misty Mountain Hop’s hopeless, plodding bluesy overload and the delicate mandolin of Going To California back to back really sealed the deal for me. At the time I was a fan of the ever-one-dimensional KISS, so you can imagine my surprise when I heard a rock band that could absolutely fucking PLAY their instruments.
I thought it would be cool to learn how to play guitar, but that seemed like a complete impossibility, especially for a little kid. Either way, he plugged me in to his amp, plugged the headphones in and said “have at it”. It was like the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the primate realizes he can use the femur of a dead animal for violence. I had not a single clue what I was doing but it was loud in my headphones and I was making sounds from a guitar and I felt like Ace Frehley (probably not much of a stretch, actually). I was absolutely hooked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmX7K8noikE
It was around this time that I found an 8-track of Van Halen 1 on the sidewalk on my way home from school in 6th grade.
I had no clue what it was, but I knew it had to be some kind of rock music. The logo was rad. There was a dude holding a guitar and everything was dimly lit. When I got home I asked my mom if I could listen to it (I was a little freaked out about Dave’s pose on the cover). The picture on the 8 track was pretty small but I couldn’t tell what the hell he was holding in his hand and I had…concerns….Anyway…that intro kicked in and this heavy guitar started playing and I couldn’t believe how good it was. I was obsessed! Eddie’s guitar playing was unlike anything anyone had ever heard before, let alone a 12 year old kid in the Pleasanton suburbs that thought he was already a rocker.
Not long after, I inherited an old cheaply-made acoustic guitar from my mom’s uncle Dennis. The instant gratification of a crappy acoustic with really high action was not in the same ballpark as a distorted Les Paul in my headphones, and I sorta lost interest. I did learn to play the requisite “Smoke On The Water” riff that was the rite of passage in those days. It wasn’t until 8th grade that my friend Dave Mattie really encouraged me to learn how to play. He had this beautiful Ibanez double cutaway and could actually play AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath songs. I couldn’t really understand how a 13 year old kid could pull that off, but he was unusually talented and incredibly encouraging.
He was definitely a key catalyst for my music career that would start at age 17. I did a few albums and toured the US a couple of times in my early 20’s (back when people still bought music at scale). Had a great time and learned more about the world than I would have if I’d stayed in Pleasanton and ran a printing press the rest of my life (story for another time).
Somehow, somewhere along the way, my synapses got a bit numb and jaded from so much music (so much angry music, actually. I played thrash metal). Still, I always went back to that first time listening to Led Zep IV on headphones and can remember it as if it were yesterday.
Yeah, sorry…I’ll get to the point when I’m good and ready. This post is kind of a big deal to get off my chest.
When my first daughter was born in late 2000, it changed me. I wanted to re-hone my skills with acoustic music so I could play songs that wouldn’t drive my family crazy. I re-stringed my old acoustic and would play songs for Maddie as a newborn while she was in her swing (trying to get the colicky little bugger to go to sleep!). One of the tunes I would always play was Going To California, amongst all the other incredible acoustic tunes Zeppelin did. It sure lit a fire under me. I went and bought a mandolin so I could learn the parts on Going To California (expertly played by John Paul Jones). O’ Brother Where Art Though came out around this time, and I took a huge bite out of the bluegrass apple as well. So much fun and such simple, meaningful music.
Remember what I said earlier about how I was 8 years old and heard Going to California for the first time and it was pure magic? A couple of weeks ago, that magic was amplified by about 10,000. A song I’d heard thousands of times. Loved it (although there is a part in the chorus where Robert Plant gets a tad screechy) for almost 50 years! Played it for my little girl as a newborn. Made me want to learn mandolin.
Life happened…then this happened:
My little girl got married a couple of weeks ago. I couldn’t be happier for her and her husband. The day was perfect, it represented them perfectly. The ceremony and reception was 1/2 mile from where she grew up and both families pitched in and made it incredibly memorable. But first, another side story:
And here is me walking my little girl up to the altar.
Completely unbeknownst to me, there was a plan:
“Let’s see if we can make dad cry today!”
(I may be paraphrasing).
At almost this exact moment, instead of “Here Comes The Bride”, guess what song came through the speakers absolutely beautifully? Yeah. You guessed it.
I still get choked up thinking about it almost 2 weeks later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBk98FT-wPk
I do realize that was a lot of words to make my point in the title of this post, but here it is:
Music is magic anyone can understand.
It can wirelessly affect someone’s emotions on an incredibly deep level, simply by vibrating their eardrums with invisible sound. In all my years of listening to, writing, recording and playing music, this very moment affected me more than any other time. I’ll never, ever hear that song the same way again, and it was the most incredible gift my daughter could give me on her special day.