The Soundtrack to My Life

Growing up, I was never one of those people that was very comfortable with myself. I think it's because I've always had pretty good empathy and a decent understanding of others -- and how different I was from so many of them. Rather than let myself be myself, I'd try to be what the people around me would find cool, or at least acceptable. So for much of my life, when someone would ask what kind of music I liked, I'd be more likely to tell them what I figured they wanted to hear (usually what they would think was "cool") than the truth.

In fact, even writing this article, I'm fighting all my natural inclinations to simply write about what I think most of the people reading this will think was cool. There's a real desire, I think, on the part of many writers not only to give their readers something good, but to appear to be a cool person as well. I've certainly been to a lot of conventions (both gaming and sci-fi) where the author guests'real desire seemed to be that everyone there came away saying, "Wow, not only does he write great stories, but he's really cool in person."

To bring this back toward the topic at hand, I always think of this when I read an introduction to a book in which the author takes the time to tell me what music he was listening to when he wrote. My personal response is, "Who cares?" Whenever I say that, my wife assures me that lots of people care. She says that some people have a need to get to know a writer (or an actor they like, or what have you) and that they (and she) find that sort of information interesting. Okay. Fine. But I always said that I'd never write such an intro. I'd rather people judged me only by my work. Or, if I go to a convention, that they'd come away saying, "Wow, not only do I like his work, but he's a nice guy." But that's a topic for another time.

So, then, how do I write a column about music (something that's important to me) without being one of those "look, aren't I cool?" guys? Well, first off, I'm not attaching this to an actual piece of my work. By all means, use some spells from The Book of Eldritch Might because they're interesting or will be a fun addition to your game, not because you like the same music I do, or because I'm cool (because, quite frankly, I'm not). Second, I'm going into this, as I said earlier, with an eye toward reality rather than some vain attempt to impress -- although I suppose you'll just have to take my word for that.

I've always been very music oriented. I never played an instrument (I took organ lessons for a month really best forgotten), and I sang in various choirs, including an embarrassing stint in a swing choir where I had to "dance." And when I say "dance," I really need to stress those quote marks. In fact, if it were grammatically correct, I'd say ""dance"" just to let you know how far what I did was from actual dancing. Mostly, I just stood in place and wove back and forth as awkwardly as you can imagine. And when I say "wove," I mean that not in the sense of a expert weaver at a loom but in the sense of a blind, distracted, drunk driver whose car has left the road and is now in a field menacing cows. Except I did my weaving in place, right next to the girl I had a big crush on. But I was 15 or 16 at the time, and all our culture's institutionalized mechanisms for dealing with 15- or 16-year-olds is built around humiliation, so I suppose I'm not any more scarred than anyone else. Except maybe for some of the people who actually had to watch me "dance."

So as far as music went, I was firmly in the ranks of the listeners. And what I listened to was important to me. When I was very young, growing up in a small town in South Dakota, my radio choices were limited to Country music, Easy Listening, Oldies, and Country music. And if you don't know the difference between Easy Listening and Oldies, well -- you probably didn't grow up in a small town, and I'm not going to be the one to point out the subtle nuances. Find someone else. Or, better yet -- don't.
Despite what the stations played, I still listened. A lot. I know the words to every Barry Manilow song. Need to know an Al Jarreau tune? Gotcha covered. Carpenters? Yep. Kool and the Gang? Done. Neil Sedaka... well, you get the idea.

So, perhaps needless to say, by the time I had the option, I rejected the radio. This was the early Eighties, which meant that the obvious direction for me to turn was to New Wave and Alternative music (which was pretty different than music labeled "Alternative" today, although they both eventually evolved into the Pop music of their time). I dove in with a passion: Adam Ant, the Police, New Order, Depeche Mode, David Bowie, Thomson Twins, Psychedelic Furs, and even some of the Cure, the Clash, and more. To name just a few. I could go on. And on. And on. And I could get more obscure than those bands as well. A near encyclopedic knowledge of Eighties Alternative and Pop, you might say.

A lot of good that does me today. In fact, I'm sure on some level it works against me. I've found that, perhaps more than other decades, if you didn't grow up in the Eighties, its music is about as universally enjoyed as a junior high swing choir. Some people even look back and think those guys in A Flock of Seagulls looked silly. Hard to imagine. (Yes, that's a joke.)

But around this same time, as I talked with my friends about Prince, the Fixx, Madness, and, oh, I dunno, maybe Dexy's Midnight Runners, I had a friend that introduced me to an entirely different kind of music that was to consign me to the ranks of geekdom forevermore. I'm pretty sure it started with Rush. The album? A Farewell to Kings. See, that has a song on it called "Cygnus X-1," and it's about a spaceship going into a black hole. A song that's not about love? A song about spaceships and black holes? Gimme, I said. And thus, like a junkie, I was drawn into the world of what some people call Progressive music, a few call Art Rock, and everyone else calls "overblown, pretentious crap."

I'm talking about Yes, Genesis, and even, for a while, Pink Floyd. (And to be clear, by "Genesis," I'm not talking about Phil-Collins-"Misunderstanding"-"Illegal Alien"-Genesis. I'm talking about Peter-Gabriel-dressed-like-a-flower-Genesis. If you don't know what I'm talking about, never mind, and if you do -- well, hang in there, brother.)

Now, if you're a purist, you're going to object to me lumping in Pink Floyd and Rush with Yes and Genesis, and you're going to wonder why I'm not also mentioning ELP, the Seventies albums of the Moody Blues, King Crimson, or maybe even Jethro Tull. My response to you would be: Hey, Mr. Purist -- chill out. There's so few of us left who like this music that we really shouldn't argue. And, no, I don't want to see your collection of Lamb bootlegs. (There are like three people in the world who will get that joke.)

What listening to Genesis and Yes did for me was teach me to appreciate musicianship rather than just catchy tunes or snappy lyrics. These guys were taking music in new directions and could really play the heck out of their instruments. They weren't writing songs, they were composing music -- complex music at that. At least, that's what they were doing when they were at the top of their game. I didn't give up on simpler, popular music, but I learned to distinguish the differences.

But saying you like Yes is kinda like saying you like Star Trek, or roleplaying games. Most people who even know what you're talking about quickly label you as a geek. I mean, some of these songs are 15, 20, even 30 minutes long, for Pete's sake. And there's rarely a catchy tune to be found.

So that's what I grew up with. (I'm skipping over my obligatory Beatles phase and my brief flirtation with Sixties and Seventies music in general, which I blame mostly on the Columbia House music club that encouraged me to buy 12 different "best of" albums -- Simon and Garfunkel, Supertramp, America, Steely Dan, the Eagles, et. al. -- for a penny.) I learned early on that playing Tales From Topographic Oceans was not the way to impress a girl, but I had my affection for Berlin and Duran Duran to help me there (I could even pretend to be into U2, if I thought that would help). Until, of course, the Nineties came along.

Then, I was dead in the water. Like the rest of the world, I left Eighties music behind, but I had a lot of trouble with Eighties music (and, truth be told, late Eighties music). A few artists came into the Nineties with me, like Sting and Peter Gabriel, but I had little desire to get on board with Hootie and the Blowfish or anything you'd want to label as "grunge." So I focused even more on old favorites and played my Yes and Genesis -- even more out of style than ever -- to death. At one point, I even said that I'd probably bought all the music that I'd ever need.

But that's a terrible trap. I see people falling into that trap all the time. You can't let yourself stagnate. So I explored a lot of different kinds of music (once again, turning off the radio), including jazz, classical, and weirder stuff.

Today, probably because of all that, I guess I'd describe my musical tastes as extremely eclectic. In the five-disc CD player in my writing room right now I've got Evanescence, a Virgin Records ambient collection, Stan Getz, Tori Amos, and Tortoise. My most recent obsession was ambient music and various electronica, including the somewhat narrow genre of space music, but that's fading somewhat because the category is so hit-and-miss, and frankly I'm tired of bringing home CDs that miss. I like some Future Sound of London, Brian Eno, Propellerheads, William Orbit, Harold Budd, Robert Fripp, Orb, Fluke, Photek and David Bowie's forays into this kind of music as well (his Some Are [The Low Symphony] is one of my favorite pieces of music).

Now the music I listen to most falls into the strange category some people are calling post rock. This music is almost all instrumental, sometimes interspersed with verbal samples. Groups in this genre include Do Make Say Think, mum, Labradford, the aforementioned Tortoise, a silver mt. zion, and probably my favorites, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Explosions in the Sky.

But that still leaves plenty of room for Koop, Miles Davis, Delerium, and the Flaming Lips. (A friend -- James Bell of Fiery Dragon Productions -- gave me their latest album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Can an album with more than one song about robots actually be insightful, philosophical, and thought-provoking? Turns out: yes.) There's even some new progressive music out there that's okay -- Camel, the Flower Kings, and Spock's Beard (among others). Oh, and I've already told you about my love of soundtracks, mostly used during gaming but sometimes good as general background music -- it's nice to write to sometimes.

So music is a big part of my life. Always has been, always will be. I'm reminded of a girl in high school who wore headphones all the time. If you ever said anything to indicate that you thought that was rude, she'd tell you very matter-of-factly that she could hear everything you said. She kept the volume down. The music wasn't there to cover anything up, it was background music. It enhanced the mood, punctuated the high points, and filled in the empty spots. The soundtrack to her life, she called it. I've always liked that.