MUSIC AS MEDS
The healing quality of music is a beautiful thing. I take advantage of it almost daily.
During the first week of January, 2023, just south of a thousand inches of snow fell in the Twin Cities over the course of a couple of days. In the midst of it all, I was encouraged to join my spouse in a 3.5-mile walk around the neighborhood loop along the west and east banks of the Mississippi River, where the snow lay blissfully unshoveled. That is, until we arrived in the Saint Paul portion of the loop walk, where (predictably), shoveling had already happened. Keeping with Twin Cities’ tradition, Minneapolis had already hit snooze on the snow removal alarm.
It was a rigorous hoof through the weighty, water-laden snow but, upon arriving home, instead of a rest, I pushed on and shoveled.
And shoveled.
And shoveled.
By 5pm I was completely spent. Thoroughly exhausted. But a red lentil soup had been promised for dinner.
To the kitchen.
Food preparation music was needed. For no reason, I randomly chose two recordings by Stevie Wonder - 1970’s Signed, Sealed and Delivered (which includes the best cover of the Beatles’ We Can Work It Out that you will ever hear) and 1982’s compilation, Original Musiquarium (which is about as cool a name for an album as you can get).
My first summer as a 21-year-old was 1983, and Stevie Wonder’s Original Musiquariam was my nearly constant companion during those balmy months of June, July and August. That music would accompany me while riding my Panasonic ten-speed (no helmet, just a Sony Walkman…it was a different time) from 42nd and Holdrege to downtown Lincoln, Nebraska where I would engage in wise-assery with the likes of the marvelous Jon Ratliff and Kirk Benson, while tending bar or making sandwich spread at Barrymore’s in the Stuart Building. Or maybe I was headed to Avery Hall on the UNL campus for summer school sessions of the core 400-level Journalism classes. Or zipping west down I-80 on the weekends in the old family car - a silver, ‘78 Pontiac Bonneville, pointed toward the farm in Polk County to help my dad with field work or irrigating, get my laundry done, and load up on my dear mom’s many culinary creations.
21 years-old! That’s nearly 2/3rds of ME ago.
Sadly, I had kind of forgotten about Stevie Wonder’s Original Musiquarium. It’s mostly a compilation album of some of his older stuff with four or five new tunes thrown in. It is soulful. It is melodic. It is, at times, deep. Full of rhythm. It is a showcase for the man’s musical brilliance.
As the 80s progressed, Stevie seemed to move into a different realm of more pop-happy music. Original Musiquarium must have left my consciousness after Stevie wandered a bit too far…off my preferred music path.
I JUST CALLED TO SAY sorry, I’m not really listening anymore. Yes, there were others too. But that’s a subject for another day.
My point here is this: re-discovering Original Musiquarium literally altered my body chemistry that snow-packed evening in Minneapolis. Right off the bat, the musical segue that transitions from Superstition into You Haven’t Done Nothing (with background vocals by the Jackson Five) is enough to turn any Grumpy Gus into Fun-Loving, Funky Fred. By then I was already doing the old white guy overbite while sock-sliding on our tiny, wooden, kitchen dance-floor. Shame and modesty be damned!
And at that point, you’re just getting started.
From the powerful Living for the City and Front Line, to what is, in my opinion, one of the strongest pop songs ever written, You Are the Sunshine of My Life. Then on to sides three and four, filled with the likes of Higher Ground, Sir Duke, Boogie on Reggae Woman (a song that cannot be heard without moving some part of the body, no matter how embarrassing!), I Wish, Isn’t She Lovely, and closing with the fabulous Do I Do, featuring Mr. Dizzy Gillespie (“Earl!.....Earl’s playin’ by hisself, Man!”). Folks, it’s close to 90-minutes-worth of music. And on that particular night it rocket-launched me 90-minutes away from Grumpy Old Man Land. It was the summer of 1983. I was 21 again!
Healing.
For some people it’s yoga. For others it’s a long walk, maybe a mani or pedi, a long sit in the sauna or an extended soak in the hot tub. Cleaning the house. Walking the dog. Cuddling the cat. Really good weed. Whatever it takes. All I know is this - I’d be in the deep, dark waters without music. It is the essential salve in my world. And for the next blizzard I'll probably need a different tuneful prescription. But on this snowglobe of a January evening in Minnesota, it was Dr. Stevie Wonder’s Original Musiquarium that delivered the meds.
Signed. Sealed.
Healed.
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