At Seventeen

The human experience as chronicled through music is like pairing air with lungs. It breathes life into the inhaling that feels.

I am largely unqualified to blog of music. I grew up listening to the Kingston Trio, Carpenters, Johnny Mathis, Peter, Paul & Mary, and classical music. I was nearly through high school before I switched from the oldies station on the radio to the pop station. At first, I didn’t even know which station to listen to. Music at my house was performed more than heard. My dad played Hawaiian on his pedal steel guitar, my siblings their band or jazz or MIDI music. So when I speak of music, it comes from a standpoint of feeling, rather than hearing.

Janice Ian is resonance.  I think of Tracy Chapman every time I hear her name and with it the following memory. It is significant for a reason.

I was a promising 21 year old. I spent a lot of time at a house, kiddie-corner from my parent's backyard, where there lived a group of guys. This was my first introduction to what being cool meant. (I still consider my acquaintance with them a crowning achievement.) Cool and popular aren't the same, many are popular but few of those are cool. I suspect it all comes down to whether you think you are elite or not. There were always people coming and going at that house, good conversation, music fests, movies, games, food and people to meet. My time there were my golden years.

Shortly after I took up semi-permanent residence at their house, a new guy moved in for the summer. He had his own place but wanted to mix up the social scene. He was nearly 30 if I recall, which to me back then was ooold. I couldn't resist being attracted to him. Maybe because he was elusive or “older” or just an incredibly awesome attractive guy who had passed the age of caring about being a twentysomething. I was intimidated by him and ipso facto extremely attracted. One afternoon after moving in he was sitting at his computer listening to music. It was the music that drew me over- he was listening to Tracy Chapman. As I listened to her most popular song, Fast Car, I felt, not heard, the music and it felt like Janis Ian. Months later, over a dinner downtown at CPK he asked me a question that changed the course of events in my life, my response began a spectacular love story with…another man. I have never forgotten how young I was then, how flattered I was, nor how naive and inexperienced about relationships I was. I often think back and wonder what would have been if I had answered differently. And now every time I hear that song I think of him.

At seventeen, I had never been asked out. I was never asked to a high school dance or had a secret admirer. I never knew of most the social events I wasn’t invited to. My friends ranged from the Navajo girl I had known since elementary school and wondered where she was half the semester to the student body president. I didn’t have any concept of social positioning other than what dreamed resided at the top. As all high school girls, high school is "real life" and I often felt swept aside by everyone because I blended into the background so well they forgot me. I sat at home most weekends listening to those oldies.

The sound of 70’s is music genius. Think about it. In one song you have Spanish guitar, smooth synth, trumpets, and jazz rhythms- for a folk song. At Seventeen spoke to my soul. Janis Ian and her contemporaries, Melanie, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins (Send in the Clowns is still one of the best songs of all time) wrote about things that mattered. None of this music about partying and raising our glasses until we’re drunk- they were raw and meaningful. You could get lost in that music. You felt that music. Even if you were the beauty queen, you still felt the longing, the loss, and the pain of the 'simple girls like me'. You can’t listen to music like that without going on a journey. Those songs changed something about your humanity- you would come away understanding somehow-even if you couldn’t understand the meaning of the words. You sink into it, like an abyss when you listen.

The music we indentify with, those anthems of experience. Suddenly we have a tool and a way to express what’s within. We can pin ourselves to it and say we are not alone in how we feel.

A few days ago I went to the mall, a place I avoid like the plague unless the words Sephora or Nordstrom are above my head, but it was an emergency and I had only time for one stop. I was wearing a bright yellow t-shirt emblazoned with “Volunteer”, pink sweats and the homeliest mop of hair perched above an undone face. The effeminate man behind the counter stared at me in protest while his coworker resolutely slumped up to the counter to take my money. A few hours later I was at a photoshoot leaning against a wall modeling when a group of photogs walked by wildly snapping pictures. All the while played in my head:

“I leaned the truth at seventeen that love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear-skinned smiles who married young and then retired.
The valentines I never knew, the Friday night charades of youth were spent of one more beautiful.
 At seventeen I learned the truth.
And those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces, desperately remained at home, inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say, "Come dance with me," and murmured vague obscenities.
It isn't all it seems at seventeen.”
-Janis Ian