Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Black Sabbath

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I’ve had a strange road with music. As a kid, it wasn’t all that important. We had a fading stereo console that sounded like its speakers were running a metaphysical obstacle course, and AM radio was king. My mom owned exactly one truly great album, Not Fragile by Bachman Turner Overdrive, and I wore out “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.” But if you’d asked ten-year-old me my favorite singer, I’d have said Shaun Cassidy. Which is hilarious now, but deadly serious then.

Things started to shift when a babysitter brought over a Grand Funk Railroad record and cracked open my skull a little.

But it wasn’t until Christmas of 1978, when Mom bought my brother and me a turntable/8-track combo, that the real flood began. She asked the record store clerk what to buy, came home with four albums, and somehow nailed two all-timers: Dire Straits’ debut and Foreigner’s debut. Both are still in my top tier. The other two? A Partridge Family record and something so forgettable it actually succeeded.

From there, my brother went hard into Black Sabbath, UFO, Aerosmith, Mahogany Rush. At first, I hated it. Too heavy, too weird. But when you share a wall with someone blasting Sabbath 24/7, resistance is futile. Before long, I knew every song, every riff. Then a movie dropped called “Over the Edge.” It featured Van Halen and Cheap Trick. Late 70s hit us with AC/DC, Rush, Styx, Journey, The Cars, suddenly our lives had a soundtrack. Saturday Night Fever briefly turned me into a Bee Gees disciple, but disco was a bright flash that burned out quick.

Then came MTV in 1981, and the floodgates opened wider.

The Police, Prince, Eurythmics, Duran Duran, Asia. By college, I’d found Oingo Boingo, U2, The Fixx, Huey Lewis, Billy Idol. At pilot training I even DJ’d a college radio show where our only rule was “No Bon Jovi.” (Every other station was already running a federally mandated Bon Jovi quota.) We played Echo and the Bunnymen, Suicidal Tendencies, REM, The Cure, The Smiths, Pet Shop Boys. We were trying to sneak alt rock into Mississippi.

Music became essential. It carried me through deployments, marriages, and moves. Eric Clapton’s Journeyman spun through the Gulf War. Nirvana’s Nevermind was the echo after Desert Storm. Later I drifted back to the softer grooves of the early ’70s, Bread, America, Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, Al Stewart, what’s now lumped together as “Yacht Rock.” I’m not sure how half those songs got lodged in my brain, but they feel like home.

And then, maybe the most important verse in this long, strange playlist: my wife and I bonded over music. Turns out the fastest way to test long-term compatibility is not a Myers-Briggs quiz, it’s whether she also loves Bread.

So yeah, music and I had a rocky start. I ignored it, mocked it, betrayed it with disco, and nearly drowned it in Bon Jovi avoidance. But like any good relationship, it stuck around, grew up with me, and eventually introduced me to the love of my life.

Not bad for a kid whose first favorite singer was Shaun Cassidy.

BTW, Wolf Alice’s latest album The Clearing dropped last Friday.