The Sound of Time
Memory is a funny thing. It bounces around in the brain like a ping-pong ball (remember ping-pong?). After a while it lands on the floor.
Time is a floor, a very long floor, like a mall, or an airport concourse, or a walk in the park.
Now I’m thinking about John and Yoko walking in Central Park. . . more about that later.
As I was saying, time is a floor. But it ends somewhere, at the edge of the building, at the edge of ? a lifetime. . . your lifetime, my lifetime.
In this electronic age, the lives of famous people are inextricably linked into our brains. The floor of my lifetime stretches from 1951 to . . . ? We shall see how far . . .
Then there’s the floor below the one that I happen to be on; that’s the level on which my parents’ generation walked. . . Roaring ’20’s, Depression, World War II, the bomb, Eisenhower.
Every now and then some amazing person will enter into this time mystery and somehow get a glimpse into those lower levels, unveiling historical truth and profundity.
Yes, sometimes, now and then, some gifted, inspired person enters into the time frame and gets a glimpse into the upper floors, the ones that don’t even exist yet. (I don’t know how else to say it). The prophets of old, most notably, Daniel, Ezekiel, John the Apostle, Jesus himself the author of it all.
Or let’s say, in more recent centuries, this person of the 1500's, Nostradamus. So what’s up with that? I mean, how can. . . uh, he get a glimpse at what’s happening on the next floor up. . . never mind. Hurts my brain to think about it. Bug I digress.
Anyway, I was noticing that in my particular “baby-boomer” view of time, music has a lot to do with what sticks in mind, along with, of course, TV.
Perhaps because I am a musician, the music of my youth is closely connected my lingering memories during these late-life (72) years. And. . . well, long story short. . .I was remembering the Beatles.
What is presently so fascinating is that the two remaining members of that fab four, Paul and Ringo, have managed to, with a little help from their (techie sound engineering) friends. . . were able to use an old home recording that John had made, to produce an incredibly beautiful song, “Now and Then” that brings to memory the rich heritage that those fab four guys were able to present to our g-generation.
Thanks to John’s wife, Yoko, who volunteered the tape for Paul and Ringo to use as a basis for their last project “together”.
You may want to hear it, maybe listen to it, as I do, now and then:
