Liner Notes- 19.May.2022

You’re gonna go far, you’re gonna fly

Photo: DJrooms.com

Either you write songs or you don't. And if you do write songs like I do, I think there's a natural desire to want to make records.

~Roger waters

For being a devout audiophile, my dad had some really weird guardrails about music.

Any and all jazz was kosher. Rock & Roll was in bounds, just never played in my house-I didn’t hear any until I started school.

But Pink Floyd & Alice Cooper (and later Prince) we definite no-go items. He always regarded them as vaguely dangerous— as a sort of evil that needed to be warded off at all turns. it was off brand for a man not at all religious & rarely phased by anything, who nevertheless once spent an entire drive across the metro area ranting when one of my aunts brought a boyfriend in a Dark Side of the Moon T-Shirt to a family gathering.

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My relationship with the band has always come in splinters: a song here, watching The Wall there. I never went to laser light shows. I didn’t try and sync Dark Side with the Wizard of OZ.

All of that to say that Pink Floyd is a band whose records are best consumed in whole. And that until this past week, I’ve never done that. Or really listened to much of their work at all.

Over the last few years, I’ve gone back to listening to music with intention. Sure, it’s still on while I’m doing something else, but that’s no longer the default mode.

And if there’s a silver lining to the hellscape of the last 2 years, it’s been connecting with other music writers online.

The catalyst for both of those was the bottom falling out of the aviation industry. I work as an Operations Agent for an airline. Pre-COVID, my job was to keep 5-6 plates in the air at all times. In the spring of 2020, it was reduced to being a distant early warning station, monitoring air traffic control feeds for diversions that rarely came.

As flights stopped coming, co-workers started going. Everyday felt like the last day of school as people took leaves. Many never came back, and between voluntary separations & retirements, roughly 18000 people hit the exits.

All of that to say that each of these points converged this past week.

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A group of music writers meet monthly(ish) via Zoom to discuss a record. Hosting duties are rotated, and one of the perks of the job is picking the record. This month’s session was hosted by friend of On Repeat Terry Barr.

The record? Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here.