The Pirate, the Boss and the Good Karma Spirit

This weekend I made Lauren (her) very first Yes mixtape……

Does anyone even remember the band Yes?

When Lauren was younger, I tried in vain to feed her a steady diet of Classic 60’s and 70’s rock and roll.  I would load up my Technics 5 disc player on a Friday night as we sat around as a family, playing Junior Trivial Pursuit, Yahtzee and Uno, drinking soda and munching on hot buttered popcorn.  I secretly hoped the music that I had come to love over the years would seep into the deep recesses of her subconscious as we laughed and giggled late into the night.  If I was about to teach her about my life it would have to start here.

A few years later, when Lauren entered first grade, I would make a “deal” with my favorite daughter, in which we would fill the five prized open disc “slots” with some of her favorite CD’s and some of mine.  Yes - I gave her the three CD openings while took the remaining two.  Okay, okay…….maybe only after Marie stepped in as the “Voice of Reason”.  Some things in the Kern household never change!

Our typical Friday playlist would consist of Britney Spears, ‘N Sync, Spice Girls, Springsteen and the Beatles.   More years passed and her Hello Kitty portable CD player could be heard blasting her favorite music from her upstairs bedroom, while I was resigned to my discman and headphones lounging on the couch on the first floor.  A musical détente ensued. 

We reconnected later during her high school teen years and to this day still continue to trade, burn and listen to music together.  I’m extremely thankful for this very personal connection between her and me.  As was the case with me and my Dad, no matter how much friction was present in the household when I was younger, we could always talk “sports” likewise Lauren and I can always talk “music”.  A special bond I will forever treasure!

In the musical Church of Scott there have been many disciples, some saints, quite a few sinners and even some martyrs, but I always find myself coming back to the Holy Trinity of the High Elders:

The Pirate

The Pirate came to me in my mid-twenties.  At that stage in my life, it was easy to find a connection with this smiling barefoot performer singing of frozen drinks, sandy beaches and life on the water.  For me, these playful pursuits were merely diversions that allowed me to stray (only on weekends) from my precisely calculated career path.  However, the more I listened, the more I learned and understood.  He showed me that there was certainly more to life than the work……

My personal epiphany came on a Caribbean cruise to celebrate our 15^th wedding anniversary.  Loaded with my walkman and his tapes, Marie and I traveled first hand to the islands where these songs were born.  We walked on the same beaches, swam in the same oceans and spoke with the same locals.  Suddenly these songs became real and in the process they became mine as well.

When we arrived back on the mainland I knew there was no turning back.  Like Gardner McKay, Humphrey Bogart, Ernest Hemingway and Hank Williams had shown the Pirate his eventual life path, it was my turn now.  I was likewise transformed.   Suddenly a personal wanderlust was awakened in my soul.  I quickly needed to see and experience more of this planet.

Additionally, a deeper appreciation of nature, the environment and the bigger world outside New Jersey soon followed.  My camera now accompanied me everywhere, hoping to catch the perfect landscape, portrait, sunrise and sunset as I started to explore these beautiful foreign places as well as local habitats, whenever I was off-the-clock from the working world.

Years later, my weekend biking and hiking “walkabouts” included his music and my trusty Nikon camera.  There is so much more to see, do and experience, but more importantly to document in prose and photos, to prove that we once roamed these lands and oceans like the explorers and adventurers that came before us. 

“I need time for the play”  “I just want to live happily ever after, every now and then” “And still twenty four hours maybe sixty good years, it’s really not that long a stay”  “They’re checking the evidence, may be some charges pressed, the only one they got me on, is some misdemeanor craziness”  “I’m growing older, but not up”

Thanks, Jimmy and the Coral Reefers!

The Boss

Along with thousands of other kids living in the Delaware Valley, I was introduced to the Boss by Ed Sciaky, legendary WIOQ/WMMR DJ.  Stories passed down the rock lineage tell of Ed letting the Boss crash on his couch on more than one occasion back-in-the-day.  Ed was our personal connection to the Boss on the radio. 

About this time, the Boss was my “Sixth Man”, along with my best high school friends known collectively as the Cherokee “5”.  His crew was Crazy Janey, Wild Billy, G Man, Hazy Davy and Killer Joe.  Boy, could I relate with my high school buddies consisting of Doc, BK, D Man and Burroughs! 

At the very moment he was singing songs from the Darkness album, I was trying to break free of the parental chains of mom and dad.  And then when he was writing songs for the River album, I was dating Marie and then one year later, living his lyrics of a young married life!

He seemed like this lost (slightly older) brother from another mother.  He and his best friends on earth (the E Street Band) seemed to be singing about particular life events just before I was ready to experience them first hand.  I learned about ideals such as community, brotherhood, struggle, friendship and the working life from his songs. 

The Boss finally grew up.  Which meant so did I.  But he still kept singing about more adult-themed issues documented on albums such as The Rising, Magic and Working on a Dream.  We both had aged and were moving forward into uncharted territory.

However, much of what the Boss sang about came full circle once Lauren entered her teen years, which was about the exact time I had first discovered the Boss all those years ago.  Suddenly I could relate to the father figure in his songs.  I was once the rebel, now the father, the establishment, the authority figure.  And as the dad, I sincerely hope that my daughter’s mistakes are truly her own.   Only time will tell…….

“We liked the same music, we liked the same bands, we liked the same clothes”  “We learned more from a three minute record than we ever did in school”  “One soft infested summer, me and (Marie) became friends”  “Beneath the city, two hearts beat”   “Together we moved like spirits in the night, all night”

Thanks, Bruce and the E Street Band!

The Good Karma Spirit

Much of what I learned in life, I learned from the lyrics of the Good Karma Spirit and his often and ever changing English bandmates.   

At first, I was drawn to the escapism quality of the music.  Admittedly, many of the lyrics were strange and abstract taken in the literal form, but when combined with the progressive rock melodies and the band’s one-of-a-kind rock sound, the total picture seemed to make perfect sense…..at least to me.   

The Sprit pointed out, over and over, how we are all connected to each other, the beauty of the planet and the need for love.  I am not an overly religious person, nor quite a spiritual person, however upon hearing this music for the first time, an immediate lifelong connection was forged.  Beginning with the band’s simple moniker, the music is filled with an absolute and overwhelming feeling of hopefulness and positive vibe!

Like the music of the Boss, the music of the Sprit guided Marie and I during the early years of dating and eventually through the first years of marriage, while only in our early twenties.  Maybe for that reason alone, this music will always hold a special place in our hearts.  So many life events happened when YesMusic was playing in the background.   We came of age with this music!

When I hear this music years later, in my mind I appear younger and ageless.  Time stands still.

“Don’t surround yourself with yourself, move on back two squares, send an instant karma to me, initial it with love and care”  “Don’t forget to leave good footprints behind”   “Our time is manmade, our fear is manmade, religion manmade, love is forever”  “We love when we play”  “Ten true summers we’ll be there and laughing too”  “And you and I called over valleys of endless seas”  “Never underestimate the signals coming to you”

Thanks, Jon and the many players of Yes!

Whenever I need to go to church to sort things out…..years later I can still put on this music and invariably the lyrics and melodies help me sort out the pieces of my big life puzzle.

So Lauren, continue to enjoy your generation’s music as well as some of your Dad’s favorite bands.  May music lift your soul and leave an everlasting impression of your life as it did for me when I was your tender age.  And when you reach my age, may you look back fondly at the events of your life that occurred when the music was playing in the background……