Welcome to the Dark Side!

It was 1973. My father had just returned from his last tour of duty to Japan for the USMC. He had just been accepted into a new program that allowed enlisted men and women to take a short leave of absence from the Corps to attend a handful of colleges around the country to complete a 2-year associate's degree. Dad chose a small junior college in Pensacola, Florida and in the short space of six months, packed us all up and moved us from Vista, California to Quantico, Virginia (we had to wait here until the approval for his application was approved by Headquarters Marine Corps) to Pensacola.

Prior to his return home, my two sisters and I were pretty much running the show at home. Mom was working part-time as a cocktail waitress at the base NCO club in the late afternoons and early evenings, so she hired a local teenaged girl to watch over us while she was away 3-4 nights a week. I remember how my mother dressed for work: thigh-high white leather go-go boots, micro-mini skirts and a wig of blonde hair that went straight down to her ankles! (I remember borrowing that wig on a couple of occasions to dress in drag for Halloween).

Southern California in the early seventies was quite a time for a kid of 9 or 10 to grow up. Flower power, free love and psychedelic influences were in full swing. Vietnam was frustrating the hell out of Americans, the women's lib movement was getting more powerful and Roe v. Wade was all anyone could talk about other than the war.

In our house, music was heavily influenced my father's love for romantic classical symphonies and jazz trumpeters. His record collection included the likes of Stan Kenton, Bert Kaempfort and Jamal, with a few selections from Herb Alpert thrown in the mix. That was pretty much it -- until my mother decided to join the Columbia Record Club.

Suddenly, a new sound emerged from the old RCA stereo console. My sisters and I spent hours listening to the Supremes, the Carpenters, the Fifth Dimension and the Three Dog Night. My mother's favorite, Englebert Humperdink would come on the moment she came home from work to unwind. It's funny that the only Beatles music I ever heard then was actually sung by other singers.

On the days that we would go out to the beach, the lifeguards had popular songs from Blood, Sweat and Tears, Tony Orlando and Dawn, the Beach Boys and Bread playing over the loudspeaker systems while we spent hours building sand castles and running in and out of the tide. We were pretty much unaware of our world situation or current events. To say life was simple may sound like a cliché, but it totally fits.

As I got older, my musical tastes developed more broadly. I found myself drawn to R&B influences that began with the music my mother bought from the record club, mixed with my dad's love of jazz and classical. I was old enough to earn money from baby sitting to afford my own music. I started buying LP's of Earth, Wind & Fire, The Jackson 5, and Stevie Wonder. I also was drawn to the heavy, beat laden sounds of disco and soon was adding Donna Summer, the Bee Gees and ABBA to my collection. Music was becoming a huge part of my life and I was completely content with each new big hit that showed up on the pop charts.

The funny thing is, I never had an ear for what I would consider hard or acid rock. The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were just not to my liking. Some of my friends in high school tried to get me to listen to groups like Rush and Yes with little or no success. Somehow I shied away from this music because I had equated it with the stoner movement and this was a huge disconnect for me, and I just never had an appreciation for it or the messages that they contained.

While I can't specifically remember when or if any adult ever actually told me this, somewhere I had these images in my head that if you listened to this music, you were being brainwashed into trying drugs and rebelling. I would hear the heavy guitar riffs and the screaming lyrics and it made my skin crawl. And for whatever reason, I had a tough time warming up to kids that listened to this music exclusively.

As a senior in high school, I was befriended by a group of guys that got together ever Friday and Saturday night to play a game known as "Dungeons and Dragons." This fantasy role playing experience was a real turn on for me, and while we played, the music that the guys listened too was not unlike the music I had avoided. While it made me uncomfortable at first, I really liked these guys and so to avoid any confrontations, I simply let them enjoy it.

As I began to analyze what it was that drew these guys to this music, I began in surmise that the lyrics and tunes helped them to lose themselves in the game. Uriah Heap, Jon Anderson and Todd Rundgren were commonly on the stereo console while we engaged in battles with imaginary dragons and evil magical enemies.

After graduation, we all drifted apart to attend college, travel or jump in with both feet into the world of work. The 80's gave birth to punk and grunge and it seemed that all music that sounded anything remotely similar to disco was shunned by the public and radio, in general. Rap music started replacing the R&B that I enjoyed and I found myself reverting to my earlier musical loves: Classical and Jazz. For me, current popular music had fractured and was simply dying.

From the late 80's through the late 90's, it seemed that any music produced had elements of rap, grunge or punk and I avoided it. A small change occurred when stylized groups began to be created by music producers who wanted a lighter, upbeat sound. The Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys gave way to individual pop stars like Brittany, Justin and Christina.

What has amazed me, though, is how timeless some of the music that I avoided as a child has been. Here it is 2007 and the Rolling Stones are still performing while Pink Floyd, Yes, Van Halen and Rush have all done reunion tours to sellout audiences—which brings me to the point of this entire diatribe.

I have a confession to make.

I am 45 years old and yesterday, for the very first time in my life, I listed to a very interesting and classic album: Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. I know that this may come as a real shocker to you all but I actually REALLY liked it! The haunting melodies and chilling lyrics are truly genius and I have actually listened to it several times now.

Obviously, the track "Money" is the commonly heard tune (but to be honest, I never knew that this song was Pink Floyd or that it came from "Dark Side"). What may strike some as amazing is one very interesting fact that I happened upon when I started to read up on this concept album: Since its release in 1973, "Dark Side of the Moon" has been on Billboard's Top 100 album charts every single week since then!

The reason behind my avoidance of listening to this album is pretty much as I have explained it: I thought it was 'drug music' and I didn't want to be connected to that in any way. Now granted, this music may actually have been produced under the influence (much of the music of that time period was!) but as I listen to it now, I can clearly hear the messages without caring how it was produced. And indeed, I can totally see why this album has endured. The music is brilliant and the performances are spot on.

I always find it interesting that we as human being can sometimes miss out on something good through mis-information or warped perceptions. But in the end, if we allow our minds to be opened to the possibility that those things may have suffered from a bad reputation or just false impression, we may actually discover something new and exciting or simply that that which we fear or avoid is simply innocuous and harmless.

Here's to learning how to open my mind to new experiences and discoveries that to everyone is yesterday's news!