Carpet of the Sun
by PhantomimicAll rights reserved © RAGG
Let me tell you a story about a father, his daughter, and their music.My story begins way before my daughter was born, in fact it begins with amoment I had with my own father. One day when I came back from agrueling day in high school I decided to get my spirits up with some rock and roll. I started blasting from the stereo Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song"and woke up my father who had come early from work and was taking anap. He came out to the living room just as Robert Plant had finished hisintroductory screaming and had gone on to sing "I come from the land of theice and snow..."My father angrily asked me to turn that "thing" down. I said I was sorry andobliged but then he just stood there looking at me like if I were some sort of devil spawn.I asked, "What?"My father replied with a question of his own, "Do you really like this shit or are you just being a snob?"This was the first outright criticism of my music that he ever uttered. I guessmy father was asking himself, "Where did I go wrong?" He grew up in asociety that danced with elegance to the rhythms of Caribbean music andwhere young people got together to read and recite poetry. He was, of course, also exposed to the music coming from the United States but it wasthe likes of Glen Miller, Fran Sinatra, Doris Day and so forth. He also knewthat the younger generations often clashed with the older ones. My father
had himself had many disagreements with his parents. But there had never been the deep cultural divide that grew between him and me, and that was soevident when it came to music.I grew up too in Latin America. I spoke Spanish, and I was exposed to thelocal songs and appreciated many of them. I could also hold my own if theneed arose to dance to their beat. However, the "zeitgeist" of my time wasrebellion and there was no better way to rebel than by embracing a musicgenre that seemed to be so alien to the generation of my parents. Of course,our great neighbor to the "North", which has always had a great influence inthe popular culture of our nations, dutifully supplied us with a steady streamof hits by bands that one-upped each other to see who was more bizarre or outrageous. If you add to this that I spent many years in American andBritish schools you can see how I developed a fondness for Rock n' Roll.However, when it came to Rock and Roll, I was not a snob. This musicnurtured and supported me through the growing pains of my teen years and beyond. When a lady would deny me her love (and this happened with analarming frequency) I would play Simon & Garfunkel's "I am a Rock" or America's "Lonely People". After some fights with my father I would playCat Steven's "Father and Son". When I was flooring the accelerator of myold Dodge Dart down the highway I would blast Steppenwolf's "Born to BeWild" or Deep Purple's "Highway Star" from the tape player. I lost part of my hearing frenetically dancing at parties and at rock concerts that includedthe likes of Van Halen, Queen, and Peter Frampton (it was a big thing thento hear ringing in your ears the day after). I went to the first screenings of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and The Who's "Tommy". I surfed the waves of the
Search History:
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
p.
Carpet of the Sun
The music of a father and his daughter.
8.8K
Reads
59
Readcasts
16
Embed Views
Recommended
More From This User
Notes
Load more
