Repost 5/30/08: I'm Tore Down, Almost Level with the Ground

Lately, I've been thinking about my life...how I got to this point, why I always took the hard road, where I'm going from here, etc. I'm questioning whether or not I am ever going to be a social worker and if so, if I will be a good one. If not, what then?

I came across a YouTube video tonight that about explains where I'm at right now, but it also brought up a great childhood memory. The very first album I ever bought was Fresh Cream. It was and is without a doubt the album that shaped my listening history and started me on my quest for more and more blues. There are no words to explain what came over me the day I heard that album. Back in the day you used to be able to go to a record store and go into a listening booth and actually play an album before you bought it. I will never forget it. My girly, girlfriend and I had ridden the bus to spend the day downtown going to the movies, the Hollywood Sweetshop and generally trying to see what trouble we could get into. We were about 13, I think. My mother had given me $20 and specifically told me to bring back change, and she meant it too. The only reason she gave me the $20 was because she didn't have the $3 that she normally would have given me to spend the day downtown and that was probably all she had until payday. Of coarse we didn't go to the movies or the Hollywood Sweetshop, we went straight to Capitol Records because that is where all the serious rocker guys hung out. It's so funny now because that was a time when everyone, yes even me, knew how to play "House of the Rising Sun" on guitar. Easy song, I know :) I walked into Capitol Records, dragging girly girlfriend who was painfully, kneeshakingly (that's probably not a word) shy. I had to hear the music, I had to be around it.

There it was, the most awesome music I had ever heard. I don't know what came over me, all I knew in that moment was that I had to have that album. Seventeen dollars of my mothers money. Oh, boy I was going to be in trouble. It wasn't that I didn't care...I was in love. I caressed that album cover the entire way home. You get the picture, don't you?

The first thing out of her mouth was "where's my change?" I don't remember exactly what I said but I know it was typical teenage, rambling. I do remember saying "but mom, you just have to hear it" and proceeded to play it for her...loud :) Now here you have to understand that my mother loved music also, so I got it honest, but she loved classical...Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Offenbach. I will never forget the look on her face. She looked at me like I was some sort of green alien being, shook her head and just stared at me the entire time the album played. I will give her credit though, she listened to the entire thing and she did not make me take it back(yeah, you could even return music, back in the day even if it had been opened), even though I said I would and meant it. I was not a callous child and I did know that was all the money she had. God, how I miss that woman. There has never been another person that understood me or knew me or believed in me like she did, except my own child, who at the moment is hovering and rushing me off the computer so he can go check his facebook stuff. So I'll leave you with what this post started out to do...share the YouTube video of Clapton's version of I'm Tore down :)