Audio Memory

All that remains of my tape collection, still sitting in Dad’s house

I used to make the best mix tapes. That was back when a double cassette CD player served as the crowning jewel to a kid’s bedroom, and I’d spend hours pondering what tracks were worthy of my playlists. Like anybody else, I drew from the musical influences close at hand: my sister’s rap music,  soundtracks from sleepovers at the Roddy house, and even my aunt Maya’s classical inclinations. The finished cassettes were always compilations that wouldn’t interest anyone else, but in my mind you could sell them to insomniacs suckered by late night TV commercials.

What made them so good was that with each push of the Play button, I’d be flicked back to the moment where those songs first imprinted themselves in my mind. A certain track could inform me of how old I was at the time, what I was doing, and what was happening in life. Music summoned memories upon memories that, when gathered together, provided a vibrant testimony of the experiences in my younger years.

“Megan, what’s this called?”

I was sitting on the terracotta tiles of the new addition in our Mashpee home. The extension was completely paneled in cedar, to include a single thick beam stretching across the cathedral ceiling. Although the room was still under construction, atop the beam already sat state of the art Surround Sound speakers. Not far away, there was a shelf holding a sleek black CD player with CDs that included perennial classics as LaToya Jackson, the ‘Cocktail’ movie soundtrack and The Clancy Brothers. The CD currently spinning was something else though. It was of the classical music variety—a definite Dad Purchase and apparently something that he turned to while putting the finishing touches on this new room.

Almost 30 years later, still enjoying the acoustics.

I was about 12 years old at the time, and while already keen to expand my musical catalog, I couldn’t identify the piece my dad was asking about. It had begun somewhat delicately, with almost undetectable wind instruments. My untrained ear picked up that it was rather repetitive in nature, but other than this it seemed wholly unfamiliar. What I did know was that I didn’t like the fact that Dad had asked a question that left me completely stumped.

“I don’t know,” I said to Dad.

Sitting on the floor, I tried to remain absorbed in a drawing I was sketching with my pencils. The minutes passed and the music continued to build, much louder now. It was a sunny day, and the rays danced through the skylight windows of this exciting new part of the house. Just behind me, the wall been paneled in slanting cedar. The odor of fresh cut wood—a fragrance that is emblematic of my childhood— still hung in the air around us. Building and rebuilding stuff was a constant fact of life in our house, just as there was always music to accompany the job.

Dad asked me again: “Hey Megan, what’s the name of this?”

A bit annoyed, my eyes flicked up to the CD player and then to the speakers balancing on the overhead beam. I didn’t look at Dad. I knew what he was trying to do, even if I wasn’t fully capable of articulating it in my adolescent mind. As such, I pretended not to be annoyed by his repeated question, and I immediately responded with forced understatement:

“I don’t know,” I said to Dad.

The music was really picking up steam now. Dad said nothing more and really appeared to be locked in concentration; for all I knew he wasn’t keeping close tabs on my presence or body language. Indeed, I tried not to be too much of a pest as I sat contentedly off to the side in my own version of kid toil.

Then Dad got up and walked toward the kitchen. Clearly he was headed for some required tool that was in the cellar, and I watched him disappear down the stairs to get it. On account of the music, I couldn’t hear him bounding down the wooden steps like I normally could, but I had been a part of Dad’s life long enough to know the timing of his habits.

As soon as he was out of sight, I popped myself up and cut through the symphonic resistance in order to reach the media shelf. Right away my eyes stole upon the empty jewel case sitting atop of the CD player. It had a brilliant blue butterfly as cover art and I did a quick study of the front and back of the case. Then, just as quickly as I went over, I skittered across the clay tiles and resumed my spot near the front door. Again, Dad has always loved to play his music loud— be it while in The Green Truck or elsewhere— and I barely heard him return as crashing cymbals and a base drum drowned out the resumption of his own work.

It didn’t take long for our game to resume.

“Hey Megan!” Dad called, raising his voice just enough to edge out the circus of cacophony now swallowing the room. “What’s the name of this piece?”

I allowed for a pause before providing my response.

Boléro!” I answered in a way that was sure to punch through Dad’s concert—but not so much that it would betray my satisfaction. I kept my eyes trained on my sketchpad.

Dad, however, didn’t miss a beat.

“Who wrote it?” he asked.

I didn’t miss a beat either.

“Ravel,” I fired back.

“Very good.” he answered, and then said nothing more to me. I smiled in spite of myself, but still worked hard to appear engrossed in what I was doing.

We continued on in silence, enjoying the crescendo but still not paying direct attention to each other. The composition reached a level of perfect mess, and in that moment it seemed a fitting interpretation of the flux that comprised daily operations in our house. Boléro is long, winding and unassuming— it captures your attention by sneaking up on you towards the end of fifteen minutes in such a way that you suddenly wonder what the hell just happened. That’s how life at home often felt.

And then, just like that, the song was over.

I am older now, and these days there are still a great many classical pieces that I love but am simply unable to identify the names or composers. Many of them, like Boléro, ultimately became a part of a well-loved mix tape that I recorded and played over and over again throughout the years. Maybe it was even followed by some fantastic rap song or otherwise, but irregahdless, it has become one of my standards.

Soundtrack of Megan’s Late 90s. No Boléro.

Music, I have found, kind of serves as mooring lines that string many of our life experiences together.  As a result, I have often found that it is only through old playlists and the rediscovery of songs that I have kept memories— both important and trivial—  bobbing and thus retrievable across the furthest reaches of my mind.

Adventures continue in the addition. I’m dying to know what songs he’ll remember some day.

I haven’t made a mix tape in decades, and at best my so-called adult life only affords me time to throw together a new playlist for my phone when I move to a new place. All the same, I love the globe-spanning mashup of melodies that has built the past four decades of my life. And while I could never tell you exactly which songs matter the most to me, I can be sure that as soon as they pop up in the restaurant of some strange far-off place, an instant journey to another time always takes hold.

Most of the mix tapes that I once made are now long gone, but as it turns out this isn’t much of a significant loss. As I learned from that cedar-paneled orchestral introduction that I got so many years ago, the act of moving through life provides for much repetitive melody. The songs come back around again and again, and most days, if I am lucky, they return attached with flashes of life that I never imagined I could remember.

The power of music. The power of memory.