In 1979, I had two ways of listening to music in my bedroom. One was a small plastic radio which had at one time occupied our kitchen counter. This was kept perpetually tuned to a Top 40 station out of Biloxi that no longer exists.
The other was a Panasonic cassette player/recorder, the kind with a handle at one end and the controls, cassette mechanism and speaker all on the top. My mother had used it for a while, recording taped correspondence with her grandmother, before allowing it to become (for all practical purposes) my sound system. I recorded tapes as well, recording over old "letters" from Grandma to create elaborately planned radio shows, which inevitably devolved into the sort of half-baked ramblings that would later typefy my attempts to be amusing on air in college.
But mostly I used it as my first attempt at having "my" music. We did have a stereo, in the family room, with a turntable, an FM receiver, my Dad's old reel-to-reel (never used at that point, although there was the constant threat of a Saturday morning performance of the orchestral score of Victory at Sea). My father's taste in popular music is defined by the life and works of John Phillips Sousa, and while my mother's is considerably more eclectic, this meant for all practical purposes, our record collection was more or less limited to J.S. Bach. Specifically, Bach as interpreted for enormous pipe organs by the masterful E. Power Biggs.
The addition of a cassette player in my room -- however tinny -- opened up limitless possibilities. I was, however, a complete neophyte when it came to anything from the world of rock. It would be a year or so before I would convince my parents to let me join 11-tapes-for-a-penny Columbia House, and a couple of more before I would get a cheap stereo of my own for my room.
In the meantime, I had a single tape, copied from an LP owned by parents of a friend who were much cooler than I. I played part of this tape every morning upon rising, as a way of gathering strength and energy before sallying out into the world.
Good morning
Good morning
Good!
That's right. On the eve of my teenage years, by the time punk was already old news, I was seriously into Sgt. Pepper. Specifically "Lovely Rita," "Good Morning," and "A Day in the Life," songs which I didn't think I understood but which I felt were the key to some more magical self I would one day become. Even "Lovely Rita," which I knew was nonsense, struck me as beautiful nonsense, that opening piano theme somehow ringing and resonating in me in a fashion wholly out of keeping with the lyrics, which were preposterous even from my unschooled perspective -- though the sexual sophistication behind them added a layer of mystery that also tantalized.
I loved the whole record (with the exception of "Within You Without You", which I found creepy). But those three songs were my secret drug, my morning coffee.
What was yours when you were twelve?