Steppin’ back into the sunshine of my love

By Ivan Morgan

She’ll read this and know who she is.

Not quite six decades ago I scurried down the stairs of my home. It was early morning. My parents had been out the night before and were upstairs sleeping it off. Our babysitter had friends over and the place was a mess.

Over by the hi fi (as we called record players back then) there were a stack of albums scattered across the floor. Not my parent’s stodgy old stuff. Albums I’d never seen before. Albums my babysitter and her friends had left behind. One had a painting of vegetables on the cover. The Best of Cream. I thought the title odd, cream is served with fruit, not turnips.

I opened it to find it was empty. Then I noticed the record was on the turntable. I put the needle on the beginning – and changed my life. Sunshine of My Love. It mesmerized me. I played it over and over all morning.

That was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with rock music. What a debt I owe her for not cleaning up those records.
I know and respect Newfoundland’s traditional music, but it isn’t my music. I can live with a little bit of Harry Hibbs or the Rudderless Lads or whatever the latest group is called — but not too much.

Grown ups tried to ram classical music down my throat, which is probably why it still annoys me. While adults tried to distract me with “serious” music, rock was piped through the airwaves to my transistor radio, which I secretly listened to at night under the covers.
My Dad once told me someday I’d be embarrassed I ever listened to such twaddle. I’m still waiting.

I was taught in school that the cradle of civilization was ancient Greece. This was taught as unquestionable fact, and that may be so for some. But my cradle of civilization is the Deep South of the United States, where the blues originated. Blues started it all, blues that morphed to jazz and then to rock, hitching up with folk along the way. My culture.

Part of this lifelong passion is my craving for new music. I am always searching for the next big thing. Classic rock is all very nice, but I crave new, new, new. The next big band. Last year it was Wet Leg. Who’s it going to be this year?

Our own Gwynn Dyer once wrote that rock music is emotional wallpaper. A few notes of a particular song take us back to the time and place we heard it first. Let me offer a few examples.

I hear Procul Harum’s Whiter Shade of Pale and I am in Wong’s restaurant, on Pennywell Road. It is 1972; I’m eating a 50 gravy Coke* and working up the nerve to talk to the most beautiful girl on Earth (she was sitting in the next booth, and I didn’t).

I hear Incubus’s Drive and I am on the 2007 provincial Liberal campaign bus at 12:30 at night, barrelling down the Trans Canada, writing a story on my laptop and watching the Liberal leader and his executive assistant, sound asleep side-by-side in their chairs, sway back and forth in unison to the motion of the bus.

One foggy night a few years ago I was waiting in the car for my wife and her mom, who were poking about Winners. I had The Kills’ No Wow on bust. Suddenly my car was surrounded by teen girls dancing madly in the dark, jumping, yelling, twirling their hair. Just as suddenly they were gone, running laughing into the mall. Extraordinary.

It’s summer, and we are all trying to take a break from harsh realities. Here’s a thought. Grab your phone or computer and share with me a song and the memory it evokes. The email is below.

(*50 gravy coke was an order at Wongs – a plate of fries with gravy and a coke for 75 cents.)
Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com