When I was a kid, my dad would spend every Friday night with me. About 7 p.m., he would lead me over to our vast record collection of more than 600 and allow me to pick two albums.
Sometimes I would pick my favorite, “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs,” or sometimes I would opt for something different, new and exciting. This was how we spent every Friday night until I grew older, and now I long for those evenings.
My dad would remind me that no matter what I was experiencing in the world, no matter how lonely or sad I felt, I could always walk over to our record cabinet.
“These people are your friends,” he said. “And no matter where you go, they will always be here giving you the advice you need to get through your day. They will never let you down.”
Yes, I was brought up in a world of classic rock, but my father did the best he could to teach me the only language of therapy he knew — music.
I’ll never forget the one rare Friday night in high school during my senior year. He convinced me to spend my only night off from my Panera Bread labors to revisit our record collection. Only this time, he brought me back to something I had forgotten about — the Eagles.
I think I remember this night more vividly now because of Glenn Frey’s death. His voice filled those early Eagles’ records I found so much solace in when I was a child.
My father knew this music could carry me through whatever was ailing me and whatever I would not talk to him about. As he cued up my favorite Eagles’ record “Hotel California,” I remembered his advice.
After all the recent untimely deaths of so many musicians I listen to and learned about on our vinyl-filled evenings, I invite you to learn my father’s lesson.
Maybe you despise David Bowie, can’t stand the Eagles, don’t even know who Merle Haggard is or want to never hear about “Purple Rain” again, but there must be some music that spoke to you, just like their music has spoken to millions. Music is the soundtrack to our lives.
It’s cliché, I know, but it’s so very true.
Friends may come and go, family passes, but the recordings these musicians leave us come from a special place, and they leave a special place for us in the world.
Music is therapeutic, and it finds you in the best of times and worst of times.
I wrote this column to honor two of my favorites who passed, Glenn Frye and David Bowie, but I also wrote this to force us to remember to enjoy the pieces they left for us in the world. They live on forever.
I invite you to listen to “Ziggy Stardust” in its entirety, because it’s the best Bowie record of all time.
Finals got you down? Cue up “Take it Easy” and let Frey’s lyrics of “a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford” take you to a place of sincerity.
Think the Eagles were lame? I challenge you to play “Victim of Love” and tell me that blues-forced lyric isn’t perfection.
Do not mourn the loss of these musicians. Instead, go pick up a vinyl copy of your favorites. Listen to the crackle and warmth of that record on a turntable and get all the feels I do when I tap into my favorite records. That commemorates them.
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys said he wanted to produce music that made people feel love. When I feel alone in this world and put on my playlist of the 50 songs that will get you through anything, that’s just what I feel.
No matter what you are dealing with in life, no matter how bad it may be or how depressed you may feel, take a lesson from these musicians’ deaths.
They were put on this earth so you would never feel alone. Put on a record and feel that love.
Alison Wagner
@allisonmwagner
