Why does one love rock 'n roll so dearly? Well, of course, the quality of a given favorite song -- its bass line, the vocals, the guitar solo, etc. -- connects with you(r ears) and makes you love it. But there's more to it than that:

The real ground of one's love for a particular song is
*Where you were when you first heard it.
*
And by that I mean: Where you were emotionally when you first heard it.

The actual song itself -- superb as it may be -- is made a thousand times more powerful by where you were in experience -- and especially in emotional experience -- when you first heard it. The song itself, in other words, is secondary to the placement of your psycho-dynamic soul when it was first playing in the background of your life.

I cannot overstate this truth (of experience): It is not the song itself -- nor, for that matter, the play or the movie or the poem or the painting, even -- which carried "The Weight" (The Band, '68). It was, rather, the contact which the song made with your innermost person, whether you were being loved and accepted at the time, or repulsed and rejected. Therein lies the power of art. (Tell me if this isn't true.)

Amazing response recently to an excerpt I played on the cast of an ELO single. It just seemed to blow up one's audience with empathy and exclamatory rejoicings.

Note, finally, that there is an explicitly Christian anchorage here: The union we wish so much to feel with another person is the embodiment, in felt experience, of the union we need with God -- that belovedness I talk about so much. I can almost say that a memorable rock song is for many persons the bearer of Christ's One Way Love.

Oh, and for the record, the paragraph I read at the conclusion of this episode is from James Hilton's stirring novel from 1934, entitled "Without Armor". LUV U.

Episode 410 - HELLO (H E L L O) E L O