Mom, Music and Me

My Mom was the primary influence as far as music went. As a child, I often tuned in to the radio with her - and enjoyed the trivia that she would share with me.

She was the one who told me that Elton John is gay - in response to my question about those massive, pink sunglasses he sometimes wore.

I found out, through my Mom, that Stevie Ray Vaughan was a Texan, and that he'd died in a helicopter crash when I was too young to be "into" music.

Mom taught me how to clean my cassette deck with Q-tips and rubbing alcohol. She also showed me how to splice broken tapes back together.

My first CD player: her doing. As were most of the CDs that I acquired from that point until I started working and buying my own. She would happily buy me almost any album that I wanted, and swipe many of them from me because she enjoyed the music as well.

That was a difficult time: being in my mid teens and having to ask Mom to please, pretty please, return my copy of Marilyn Manson's "Antichrist Superstar" when she was finished listening.

We still introduce each other to music. She tells me that there's a great version of "Amazing Grace" out, with added lyrics. I tell her that she's going to love the latest Eminem album.

I set up her computer to automatically rip her CDs to the folder that she prefers, with the appropriate audio quality. She helped me strategically arrange my surround-sound speakers when I brought them home.

Music, it seems, is one of the reasons why Mom and I are so close. We would still have plenty of things to talk about, and more than enough things to do with each other, but music fills a large part of our lives. I'm not sure what I would do with myself if that changed.