I held my breath and prayed.
I was about to replay a former favorite album of mine.
From when I was 20.
This is what I prayed..
That I would not detect too much propaganda in it; aimed specifically at my generation
(per the spirit of the, then current, United Nations universal mandate to get rid of us..of course)
I prayed that I wouldn’t run across any sly insults. You know, all the wicked and uncomfortable bits that can be found within the guts of a heavily propagandized beast.
It is an album which I played through my headphones continually. Walking everywhere, crossing streets or looking at produce in whatever store I was in. In whatever town I was in.
It was during the years of my being a 19-year-old mother raising her child on a traveling sales crew.
As far as I’m concerned, this album carries the very imprint of the most difficult years of my life (aside from childhood). It brought me a lot of joy and gave me multiple topics to think on while engaging in my own personal poetry. A couple of songs were replayed a lot within one period. From a time I was healing from a crushed larynx. Someone had tried to strangle me under a fully turned on spigot. Needless to say, I attached myself to quite a few comforts to get through the days. This album and the sight of the beautiful young man who served as centerpiece to the group, were just the ticket.
It helped me redirect feelings of inner turmoil, for I wasn’t exactly the owner of a timid or non-drunken temperament. It helped carry me off into my blackouts. After evenings spent weeping over memories of my childhood along with the more recent troubles. Many nights, a passerby would have heard the loud “shushing” sound coming from the headphones, indicating that I’d turned it up to maximum levels before drifting off.
And it helped sprout a few bushes of good thoughts. Like what God could possibly be. How long the blissful emotions I was experiencing from the presence of my newborn would last. How great it felt to find a modern album with true art involved instead of the worsening garbage I was finally outgrowing. Not completely, but enough. It was a wonderful companion backdrop for me. From heavy hitting to tender warmth-it had a well balanced and paced stride.
Nothing exists in our media that isn’t “hit” by some propagandist touches. Even on a squeaky clean production, the imaginations (and hysteria) of humans in general can manage to conjure up “propaganda” where not a sentence was written for it.
For folks like myself, with no family members or friends, from the lifetime combinations of cosmic tough luck and voluntary drunkenness, certain instances/sorts of media attachments end up serving as substitutes in the youngest years. To express emotions like delight or fear. To keep you company. In moments you don’t have someone to protect you or simply talk to you. To hold memories for you, which you can “relive” in your older age through playing the tunes or watching the shows.
Long story short…my heart is full of relief…pleasure…and gratitude to be able to enjoy it still. I’ll probably let it play for another run soon.
It’s still as good as I remember and I’m pleased to find that it’s friendly enough to welcome the good news of my journey like a “good friend”. Like a last remaining friend in your life who appreciates and celebrates that you turned out pretty okay after all.
It would have been a disappointment, (at an age where one can scoop up formerly dropped messages)
to have run across anything to ruin that.
Naturally, many top talents have taken part in propaganda. If they’re true craftsman, take pride in their work and present themselves in respectable ways for the public which help support them, even the most spiteful or potentially ‘dangerous’ propaganda can be overlooked. It’s the cycle of life, as folks say.
Dark feeds Light, things grow.
It’s the nonsensical and rude propaganda, the one borne mostly from craving kicks and calling attentions to oneself and beaming over “how clever I was.” Or a mechanical and cynical assignment executed without spirit or tact. It grows nothing and ends up nowhere. It’s that void filled with nothing but Hate (with a dry Greed center) that’s been choking our entertainment industry, that’s the deplorable thing. Be forced to notice too much of it and the piece can be ruined forever.
I’m glad to see it “passed”. Here’s hoping that new attentions keep turning to it for decades to come.
(With a tight embrace for “Edge of the World” )
(And a wink to “Falling to Pieces”)
NOTE: Now, if I ever find out that some audial- hoo- doo -propagandist- engineering idiocy was perpetrated to result in undetectable long lasting influences on my baby at that time, after transmission through the air…and that all active members of the group were aware of it…
Well, I won’t feel quite so snuggly over it then, will I?
;0)
Ramsy's Joint 