9 volt heart...

i remember...
when i was young...
long before...music was at our fingertips..

my love affair with music started early..
my parents had a transitor radio...
they would let us use it to listen to music...

i remember...
sneaking the radio...to listent to it at night..
i remember...
days when i was home sick from school...
listening all day...

music changed my outlook on the world..
i'd hear a song i liked..
and i could hardly contain my excitement..
i'm still that way...
i listen to both new music and old...
my excitement for both...
never changes..
songs i haven't heard for a while..
songs i just heard...
but i have to hear again ...and again..

i think each of us have music..in our lives..
one way or the other..
some people don't get so excited about the music they hear daily..
in their lives...
for some people...music forms a soundtrack to their days...

i can remember songs playing when things happened...
like on a good friday years ago..
when i was driving down the street...
a car pulled out in front of me...
i couldn't avoid hitting it...
to this day..
everytime i hear ...
fleetwood mac's ...."she's changing me"...
i can't help but think about the moment i knew..
i was going to be in a fairly bad accident...
and there was nothing i could do..
but hope for the best....

i remember...
summer days...in highschool...
lying on my back...in the park..
watching the clouds and soaking life in...
while listening to ....
the youngbloods..."ride the wind"....
by that time i had a cassette player...
so i could record what i liked...
and listen to it over and over and over...

i remember...
the girls singing along to the radio...
as we drove places...

i remember...
music comforting me...
during times of loss...

how...
i can't forget artists like ...
trini lopez, dean martin, nat king cole...
because my parents had their records..
and played their music in our house...
and how...
my parents bought me my first rolling stones record...
how my mother..
took a carload of neighborhood kids..
to see the movie "woodstock"...
and how...
to her horror...
there was nudity...and bad language...
and still...
my parents bought us the soundtrack album..
because they knew..
how much music meant to us....

so this week i was thinking about music..
where it's come from in my life...
where it continues to take me..
and i think back...
to a time when i was very young...
when all i had was this transistor radio..
and this transistor radio was powered by this..
little square 9 volt battery...
which you don't see much of anymore...
and how...
this little squre battery was all that was needed...
to jump start my heart...
to change my mood...
to light up the night...
for comfort..
for joy..
for consolation..
for understanding...

this little square battery...
powering my lifeline..
to a different world..and different feelings...
when all i had to do was click it on..
and let the music start....


todays music...
9 volt heart...dave alvin...

"...his mama said “baby, wait for me in the car,”
and she went lookin’ for his daddy inside a bar
so he sat and let the radio take him far away
listenin’ to xprs and krla.

plastic silver nine-volt heart
you click it on and let the music start
and the radio was his toy
the radio was his toy.

well rachel was twenty and he was seventeen years old
sittin’ in a parked car on a country road
runnin’ his fingers through her long black hair
and the staples singin’ “baby, I’ll take you there.”

plastic silver nine volt heart
you click it on and let the music start
and the radio was his toy
the radio was his toy.

doin’ the dishes long after midnight
talkin’ about the evenin’ news with his wife
the baby wakes up and starts to cry
so they turn the radio on for his lullaby.

plastic silver nine volt heart
you click it on and let the music start
plastic silver nine volt heart
you click it on and let the music start
and the radio was his toy
the radio was his toy.

plastic silver nine volt heart
plastic silver nine volt heart
you click it on and let the music start..."