Random Thoughts on a Rainy Day

I have a half-brother who is 10 years older than me...I only recently realized that he was very influential on my early musical taste. He introduced me to Supertramp and The Rolling Stones pretty early when I was still a little pipsqueak and the other kids in my class were still listening to kiddie music. Not that imbued me with any kind of musical sophistication in my later years (or made me cool at the time...I didn't understand half the lyrics I was singing and probably sounded like a complete idiot singing Fleetwood Mac lyrics: 'When times go bad, and you can't get enough, just ay yourself in the tall grass and let me do my stuff...').

But I do remember so clearly the album covers of those two bands (the first couple of albums that I owned). Later, my half-sister bought an album by Rickie Lee Jones which I just loved. I played that album over and over again in our living room and drove her nuts. She ended up hiding it from me. I wonder if she still hates that album?

My musical preferences got stuck somewhere in the 90s when I was in my 20s and music meant so much to all of us (remember making mix tapes for your friends?). I don't know when exactly it happened, but somewhere along the way I stopped buying music. At the time, we all had fountains of knowledge about bands, developing music, new albums, new directions and the like.

The most recent CDs I purchased have been children's music, and with the exception of When We Were Young ( a lovely collection of Irish children's folk songs), none of which have any real musical merit...though we all sing along to them in the car. It is kind of a compulsive, obsesive sing-along that happens, whether we like the song or not. What fun. I sure am looking forward to that 8 hour drive to Italy this summer!