The Sweet Sadness of Music Remembered

Digital art collage by Stella Kalaw

It all began on Christmas Day 1954. Just over seventy years ago. I was 12 years old, nearly 13. I had asked for—and received—a record player. I was probably given one or two records at the same time.

This was the beginning of a love affair with records that grew stronger over time. Years and years of records. Decades. Until CDs came along in the late 1980s, and all the accumulated records became redundant. And were shoved rather unceremoniously into boxes in the attic.

Where they have sat, more or less undisturbed, until now.

But the time had come. With future downsizing in mind, it was definitely time for an attic clear-out. What a lot of old bits and pieces there were. Including the records.

The decision was obvious. They had to go. We no longer have a working turntable or all the other necessary gear. We certainly don’t want to buy all that stuff again.

Our daughter and son-in-law had kindly offered to dispose of the records for us by contacting the relevant shops. There were eight boxes in all. Heaven only knows how many records. We made no effort to count them.

But oh, what a wrench. When we opened the boxes and pulled out record after record, it was as if a live stream of memories came pouring out. So many hours of listening, daydreaming, dancing, singing along, smiling at each other, reflecting on life.

So much at once—it was almost painful.

My first records, like all that came after, were a mixed lot. Classical music chosen by my parents in the hope I would like it—The New World Symphony, Scheherazade, a few others. And I quickly came to like them because, with little choice, I played them over and over.

I discovered that there is very little music I don’t like if I listen to it often enough.

Also musicals, which I loved in my early teens—Oklahoma, The King and I, Porgy and Bess. I knew all the words, because I heard them so often. It had been my ambition to be in a musical when I grew up.

And Mahalia Jackson, always known by her first name. The queen of gospel. A voice like no other.

I had seen her, completely by chance, on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1952, and told my mother we must go hear her sing in Carnegie Hall the following night. It was unusual for her to accede to my whims, but she did—and it was memorable. Mahalia put out her first record a couple of years later. Gospel music became a thing for me.

I played all this music very loudly. Like many a teenager, I wanted to shut the world out. If you are ever angry, there is nothing so glorious as playing Mahalia at full volume.

And there was also the first record of the very funny Tom Lehrer, given to me for Christmas by my very prim grandmother, because I had asked for it. I had heard bits of his songs and wanted the whole experience.

He was brilliant—and often over my head.

I was 16. We had put the record on while sitting around before our Christmas lunch. He was singing: “Don’t solicit for your sister—that’s not nice…unless you get a good percentage of the price.” I asked my father, very innocently, what solicit meant. Famously, he replied, “Ask your grandmother—she gave you the record.” There have been quieter rooms in history, but not many.

While at college, I slowly acquired more records, mostly classical—Beethoven, Mozart, the usual stuff. Plus Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, which I always found stirring.

In my third year, I met my husband-to-be. He had very few records, but some jazz. He introduced me to Miles Davis’s, Kind of Blue. Stunning.

After we got married, we had little money but managed to buy a few more here and there. Mostly classical by that time, but strangely, it is the other stuff I remember most.

Joan Baez had a beautiful voice. I still love her song 'There but for Fortune Go You and I,' although it was never one of her most popular. Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Frank Sinatra. We were not true collectors—we didn’t have full sets.

And more jazz. Thelonious Monk—loved him. Ben Webster—also. Nina Simone. Leadbelly. And still mostly classical over the years. Records upon records. Early music, Bach piano, Scott Joplin, Brahms Requiem (which I and the choir I sing in have sung so many times since). Ravi Shankar. Box sets of operas.

We learned music through these records. There is even one Beethoven symphony that I always expect to stop in the very awkward place where the record stopped, needing to be turned over.

Plus some extras. A recording of the March on Washington with the Martin Luther King speech that gives you goose bumps in a second. Under Milk Wood with Richard Burton.

That day we lifted the records out one by one, with a genuine pang for all they represented. Eventually, we had to stop. Too much to take in. Music is, of course, amazing. There is no other medium that can evoke memories the way it does. Not even the smell of madeleines (or equivalent) in my view, whatever Proust had to say.

And records are so tangible—just holding one brings back a moment somewhere back in time. Memories of feeling alone, memories of feeling together. Excitement, joy, sadness, a brief memory of someone long since died.

It took us a day to recover after we piled all these records into my son-in-law’s car to be disposed of like old clothes. Most are worth nothing to anyone else. A few may have some value. We console ourselves that we have much the same music, plus more, on CDs. Not to mention the ability to stream just about anything at the touch of a button.

But it isn’t the same.

Somehow, something about our whole lives was in those eight record boxes.