It is a dark cold December. Ive just arrived in a Korea, by myself, and I’m quite lonely. I wander through the Osan Air Base Exchange . Over in music and electronics, someone has set up a boom box to play R.E.M.’s newly released CD “Automatic for the People.” The music is startlingly new and fresh. It lifts my spirits in the way that only fine music can. The song I first hear is “Ignoreland.” Taking a cue from the title, I ignore the overt overreaching political rant of the lyrics and am caught breathless by the sheer brilliance of the musicianship, the art of the performance. I buy the CD immediately based on a single cut—which turns out to be one of the weaker cuts on one of the finest CDs ever recorded. It is the simplicity of the chord changes that most fires my admiration. There is nothing complex or confusing about any of it. The songs are at once brilliantly written and easily accessible. About six months later, my 14 year old son Ryan asks if I will teach him to play guitar. I buy him an inexpensive but playable guitar for $100. “Automatic for the People” becomes our primer. I first teach him to play “Man on the Moon,” the hauntingly bizarre, beautiful, and compelling musical obeisance to the late Andy Kaufman. Eventually I teach him to play most of the songs on the CD. https://youtube/watch?v=1hKSYgOGtos
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 03:28:21 +0000
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