Today’s newsletter is a guest-post written by Anna. Enjoy!
On most days you can hear music in our house. I grew up on a steady diet of folk, Americana, and blues. Luke grew up on R&B, jazz, and hip-hop. When we got married it was fun going back and forth and playing our favorites for each other. Needless to say, we’ve gotten our money's worth out of Spotify. When we had kids, we thought it was great that they had a mix of all kinds of music. Spotify allows us to play music from any genre, decade, and artist all within the span of a minute. Car rides are made easier with an instantaneous juke-box for the kids and we could set the mood in our home to whatever we wanted. Party? Let's blast Justin Timberlake. Schoolwork? Mozart. Mom’s nostalgic for her youth? Usher. And on and on.
As the kids have gotten older, however, I’ve been feeling like they are missing out on something. Missing out on what may seem outdated or boring. It’s what I’d like to call a “musical home.” I listened to the same 5 CDs over and over and over as a kid. I had every lyric memorized along with every guitar solo and the order of songs. I never once wished I had more options. It was all I knew and it felt safe. When I heard that music I knew where I was and I knew who was with me. It was comfortable and exciting all at once.
One of the members of my musical home was Nancy Griffith. She passed away this week and I was taken aback at how sad this news made me. I realized it was because her voice, and the album Other Voices/Other Rooms, was the soundtrack to my childhood. Over dinners, car rides, Saturday mornings we were singing about Caroline from Tecumseh Valley and a Woman of the Phoenix. Without knowing it, Nancy Griffith shaped the way I view songwriting, phrasing, and melodies. It was listening to that album hundreds of times that gave me a love of finger picking guitar and appreciating my dad for being able to match that style.
Listening to the same albums was not only formative to my own musical interests, but also created a family culture around music. When I hear Nancy Griffith, I am transported to being 10 years old and singing with my sister. I still love the ability to listen to whatever I feel like in the moment, but I now see the value of repetition. It can give deeper connection and form stronger roots like I had with Nancy Griffith. Hearing of her recent passing has inspired me to curate some playlists in our family that we will have on repeat for years to come. I still want different genres, decades, and artists, but I no longer feel the pressure to play new music or have fear that my kids will get bored of the same songs.
What songs would be on your playlist? Who is a part of your “musical home?” I hope to share ours with you soon!
Building A Musical Home
Lovely memories here, and interesting realization about the comfort of the familiar. Your original musical home sounds very similar to the one our kids grew up in. I have fine memories of our two youngest kids, with guitars (pretending), enthusiastically mis-singing a duet of Nanci's Trouble in the Fields. "You be the mule, I"ll be the COW...." :) Lots of Nanci, Carole King, Lightfoot, Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Eagles. And also great memories of wild dance parties to Rolling Stones, J. Geils, Mitch Rider & the Detroit Wheels. Thanks for evoking these memories!
Great story. Our 31-yo son recently thanked us for exposing him to all types of music 😊. When I was a kid, my Dad fed us a steady diet of The Beatles and my Mom was more into Elvis, Tom Jones & Engelbert. I really love the 60’s & early 70’s music too (I have a Golden Oldies playlist on Spotify) and you know I love my country music! My parents played “albums” and us kids knew all the words (and still do for the most part)! They have both passed away and all those old songs bring back such special memories. I’ve been known to hear an old song and just start crying. I think I miss my younger days. 😢