I missed the boat on music, and it still rankles. Let me say up front that, had things gone differently, I would not have become a musical prodigy, a rock star, or even a lounge singer with a baby blue tuxedo and a coke habit. There’s not a music molecule hiding anywhere in my SNA. But I might have at least been musically literate. Or what’s audio equivalent of literacy?

Let me try to dredge up the relevant memories here. The impetus? I was listening to a song the other day recorded a few year...