Highway 61 Revisited Reprise (Slight Return)

How do we fall into this thing called music obsession? I know a lot of people with the obligatory parent issues, and not all of them fret that they simple don’t have enough money to keep up on their cd collection. Not all of them seek comfort in knowing that they have the entire XTC discography. I can’t confess that all of them are even serious music fans, let alone fanatics. They don’t marvel at liner notes and stare at album jackets for hours on end. In fact, some of these people will actually portend to enjoy music more than they actually do simply because they notice that you speak of music with a passion. Psychology calls this the “Stockholm Syndrome.” I call it “posing.”
You probably think this is the part where I quote something by Nick Hornby. But my drive to work got me thinking about something different: “Where did this shit all start?” Then it got heavy.
I think my Dad liked music. I say “I think” because I still don’t really know my father. I find out surprising shit about him all the time. Like the night in high school he and a few buddies got busted with booze by the highway patrol. Or when I found out he cried when the family dog died. Or when you report to your parents that you’re on high blood pressure medicine and find out that your father has the same condition.
I bring these points up as a blatant analogy demonstrating how I was never emotionally close to my Father. I don’t need to know everything about him, but it would have been nice to have an actual conversation with him or feel a tad bit wanted. And by conversation I don’t mean politics, movies, history or (yep) music. No, I’m talking about real conversations where you hear about their own emotions, humanity, desires and failures. You need to hear about how it really hurt to have that fucking cocker spaniel die. You want to know if their own family was emotionally crippled and rife with a therapist’s thesis. You particularly want to know if you’re a tad bit wanted after the unwanted news of your own conception.
Sure, I’ve gotten to that whole “Forgive, Love E’m For Who They Are, Feel Sad For The Opportunities They Lost” bullshit already, and I’m not a bitter about it as I once was. But nonetheless, it did make me sit up and consider the reason why I love music with the passion that I do.
Growing up, I was handed down all of my parent’s 45’s and given access to one of those portable turntables from the sixties. My parent’s primary source of new music was via a new form of technology called the 8-Track. The 8-Track player was put high above my reach. I knew the old man liked The Beatles, so they became my favorite too. After the singles were absorbed, Dad gave me “Sgt. Pepper’s,” “Meet The Beatles” and “The Beatles ‘65” in long-play form. I had all the lyrics for these albums memorized before I turned 4.
There were a few albums that continued to remain out of reach along with the 8-Tracks. Those albums were Peter Paul & Mary’s first album, Pete Seeger “On Campus,” and Bob Dylan “Highway 61 Revisited.” All the people on the folkies albums looked old, but Dylan looked pretty young in that leather jacket and Triumph Motorcyles t-shirt. I imagined that someone took the photograph while he was working on the motorcycle. In my mind, he probably knocked out “From A Buick 6” immediately after installing spark plugs.

But I could never get my hands on that album. Dad deemed it to be too important to hand down to me and took notice of my love of writing on record labels with pens while they rotated around the turntable. I immediately stopped writing on my singles and album jackets, thinking that it would suddenly demonstrate responsibility enough to warrant a listen to that precious Dylan album. He wouldn’t budge.
Years later, I was snooping around one of Dad’s file cabinets and came across a file with a bunch of Bob Dylan lyrics typed out. I knew the words to “Subterranean Homesick Blues” before I even heard the song.
I began to “study” more music and became a handy reference table that my Father seemed to enjoy having. We could actually talk about music! My research continued.
By the time the inspiration for being a music geek was sown, a revelation occurred to me. As a teenager, I opened up the same desk drawer that had housed “Highway 61 Revisited” for so many years and found that the album was still there. At that point, I was the only person in the household that actually had a stereo, let alone a working turntable. The 8-Track player had died and never was replaced. Only a couple of radios remained in the house, and even these were only turned on in the morning during coffee as both parents listened to the news. It took a while before Mom became enamored by Katie, Matt, Al and Ann.
I grabbed that Dylan vinyl, marched up to my room, and smacked the fucker right on to my Craig stereo with the ceramic cartridge (I was obsessed by turntable cartridges, for some reason. I was convinced that metal cartridges were superior and looked for ways into incorporating one into the tone arm of my Craig stereo, even though it was fruitless effort). The snare cracked and I heard the familiar refrain about someone who dressed nicely, once upon a time, when they were younger.
I announced to my Dad that I had borrowed his copy of “Highway 61 Revisited” and would return it when I was done. He had forgotten that it was even there. How does one forget about their copy of “Highway 61 Revisited?” The thing was tucked away like a family jewel for years and now suddenly it’s not valuable? I knew that I’d been duped.
It was too late by then. I was already immersed in this who rock thing and I just couldn’t turn my back on it the way Dad turned his back on Bob. I’d even gone to such lengths as to replace the paper record sleeves with non-scratching ones by Discwasher, just to protect their contents. I bought Queen’s “News Of The World” and Cheap Trick’s “Live At Budokan” album and played them until both parents became annoyed, asking me to play something different.

You might say, it was my first “punk” period. Maybe. All I knew was that Queen’s “Get Down Make Love” was about sex.
So what started as the possibility that I could somehow form a relationship with my Father based on a mutual love of music suddenly gave way to the stark realization that he was merely a poseur. The music may have actually moved him at some point in his life, but now, it was just an occasional nudge. The next time I actually saw him get deeply entrance with a song was when he heard that baby-boomer history lesson by John Fogerty called “I Saw It On TV.” If you’ve never heard it, it’s along the same lines as Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire” but not as pretentious. I had to listen to the entire “Centerfield” album because Dad didn’t want to hear the Run DMC tape that I had purchased that same day. Guess which one is cited as groundbreaking?
So now we’re at the point in our relationship where I actually lecture him on his music collection. It’s riddled with “Super Saver” greatest hit complilations on the “special marketing” subsidiaries of major record labels. I chastise him for not having a copy of “Sgt. Pepper’s,” “Beggar’s Banquet,” or even “Highway 61 Revisited” anymore. He’s moved on to wine, buying suits, and hobnobbing with political brethren while I remain steadfast in my musical obsessions. How does it feel?