Today I allow myself another reaction to the number in the title. (CW75 is the other one.)
1989 was the year I started learning guitar on a nylon-string that we had in our house. I was thirteen. My parents could both play, and I remember my dad sitting down with me to show me some open chords. I was intimidated by how fast he could switch between them, and I gave up for a few months.
During that time, I distinctly remember thinking, Am I really gonna not do this?
A book was the door.
My mom brought home Beatles For Recorder—she played (and my brother had taken recorder lessons from our next-door neighbor when we were on sabbatical in Madison, Wisconsin). It must have just caught her eye. Both Kurt and I had been cuckoo for the Beatles for a couple years by that point.
The thing was: the book had chord symbols written over the melody and words. And we also had an old book of chord diagrams for guitar.
I put the 1987 book together with the one from 1965, triangulated with all the Beatles music brimming inside me from hours and hours (and hours) of listening, and something in me snapped. (For decades I’ve had this idea that experiencing enlightenment would sound like a branch of wet wood breaking.)
I was already a saxophone player (alto and baritone) in school, but suddenly I found myself gripped by music in a new way. Whatever was happening—as many before and after me can attest—was more than merely “practicing.”
For Christmas that year—I’d turned fourteen at the beginning of the month—my parents got me my first guitar that was my own: a used Yamaha steel-string dreadnought. (I still have it. 💕)
(Christmas morning, 1989. I can see I just woke up! Also note the Santas by the window.)
In honor of the 89 in CW89, today I’ve chosen the song “Acoustic Guitar” from my 2011 album (begun in late 2010, finished in early 2011) Message From Work. It occurs to me: the album came out fourteen years ago, the age I was when I was given the Yamaha...
Numbers: a slippery slope!
“Acoustic Guitar” I like to play acoustic guitar Acoustic guitar The money don’t have art till it hits the air I like to play acoustic guitar No never plugged in at all The inter-never-net’s the mall and I drop the ball I like to play acoustic In the field It’s so easy To be real You can sell a phone With this feel But you can’t buy me I won’t steal I like to play acoustic guitar Acoustic guitar The money don’t have art till it hits the air I like to play acoustic guitar No never plugged in at all The inter-never-net’s the mall and I drop the ball I like to play acoustic In the hall It’s so easy To be small I don’t wanna climb Up your wall You can pull me up I will fall I don’t have to play at all I like to play acoustic I like to play acoustic Onto tape It’s so easy To be great You can sell a pain With an ache But I won’t buy it I won’t break I like to play acoustic guitar Acoustic guitar The money don’t have art till it hits the air I like to play acoustic guitar No never plugged in at all The inter-never-net’s the mall and I drop the ball I like to play acoustic guitar Acoustic guitar The money don’t have art till it hits the air I like to play acoustic guitar No never plugged in at all The inter-never-net’s the mall and I drop the ball I drop the ball I drop the ball I drop it all