Back before the Internet, when downloads and iTunes didn’t exist, I drove to another state for the new Indigo Girls album. It was 1990 and I spent my day off driving from Jonesville, Virginia, to Kingsport, Tennessee, to the mall. Remember mall record stores?
I had recently upgraded from my first car, a 1968 Dodge Dart named Arthur (yes, it was incredibly old even then), to a nondescript K-car. I got air conditioning and FM radio in the upgrade but no tape player. So, on road trips I’d bring along my radio/cassette player and one of those power cords that plugs into the cigarette lighter. It didn’t play through the car’s speakers, I just blasted it as loudly as I could from that sad little “box,” sitting, speakers up, on the passenger seat. It takes about an hour to make that drive, which means I got to hear the whole album at least once on the drive back.
I want to say new albums meant more when obtaining one was an event like this, but I don’t think it’s true, even though I remember small, specific details of that day, like how steamy the car was when I got back in at the mall parking lot, wrestling with the thin, tight-wrapped plastic to open the hard, textured-plastic case around the tape. Like putting my sunglasses on and hearing “Hammer and a Nail” for the first time, making my way back to the highway. Like I was recognizing something I’d heard before yet couldn’t wait to hear revealed.
I want to say this but then, today, on retreat in a remote locale with a one-bar signal, I managed to download the new Indigo Girls album, One Lost Day, onto my phone in decent time. And when I heard “Elizabeth,” the sound of summer and longing all mixed up with their voices – like another summer whose stormy soundtrack was Rites of Passage (“Ghost,” “Romeo & Juliet”), like the epitome of late-summer ripeness and longing I can actually taste every time I hear “Mystery” (Swamp Ophelia) – memory of that drive flooded back.
It took a lot less time to procure this album, but I’m in the same place, transported.
Driving to my retreat yesterday, I listened to another musical traveling companion, Susan Werner. These days I can plug my phone straight into the car’s sound system to listen, but the essence of companionship is the same. Driving alone through the green gorgeous western Virginia mountains, Susan sang to me about “the greenest corner of God’s green earth,” and though she meant Iowa, it resonated.
Lately I spend most of my time in the car navigating appointments, with NPR on in the background. Yesterday’s drive reminded me how much I need music and what great musical traveling companions I’ve spent time with over the years. To give myself the excuse to listen to more music this summer and to evangelize a little about some of my favorites, I decided to do a relaxed series here called Traveling Companions, telling stories about and highlighting songs/albums/artists that have accompanied me. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.