So It Seems

Information:

• Source: Hello World Notebook
• Key: C Major/A Minor
• Measures: 60
• Parts: Cello and Piano
• Duration: 3:22 Min
• Pages: 5

1971 #

The world I entered in 1971 had already been getting along perfectly well without me, with all its problems, and millions of people going about their lives without the slightest idea that I was about to make an appearance, which was just as well because I had no idea what I was getting myself into either.

Nobody was waiting for me, there was no welcoming committee, and as far as I know, nobody had arranged a parade. In fact, not even my mother was waiting for me, since she had no idea I was coming. But when I look back at the year I was born, I find it fascinating to see what was happening around the world while my own little story was getting started. The birth certificate gave me a date, but the year itself gave me a much larger picture of the world into which I arrived, and mine certainly had plenty going on.

SEVEN INSTEAD OF NINE #

According to my official birth certificate, I was born on March 30, 1971, although my mother always insisted that it was March 31. Since she was the one who gave birth to me, with the help of a midwife, in my grandmother’s house, I’m not sure the certificate has the final word.

There was another surprise waiting for her, because she thought she was having one baby and discovered that she was having two. A baby girl arrived first, followed by a baby boy, which was me, and we were both born at seven months, at a time when prenatal ultrasounds were not part of ordinary pregnancy care, so there was no convenient little screen telling my mother that she was preparing to become a mother of twins.

She went into childbirth expecting one child and came out with two, which strikes me as a rather ambitious way to exceed expectations.

I arrived on a Wednesday, and while my mother had more than enough to keep her occupied, the rest of the world continued with its own business, completely unaware that I had just joined the population. It was quite a year to make an entrance.

MUSIC, COFFEE, TEARS AND DEATH #

Vietnam was still going, with no convenient ending in sight, while governments pursued their interests, people protested, politicians argued, and millions of ordinary people dealt with whatever consequences happened to land on their doorstep.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were making music with Led Zeppelin that would become part of the soundtrack of the era, and in 1971 the band released Led Zeppelin IV, giving the year one of those cultural landmarks that would prove considerably more durable than many of the people making political decisions at the time.

Rod Stewart was also recording Reason to Believe, a song about holding on to a relationship even when there are good reasons to doubt it. His version appeared on Every Picture Tells a Story later that year, and I would have to wait a few years before life began offering me my own lessons in love and disappointment.

Then there was Starbucks, which opened its first store at Seattle’s Pike Place Market on March 30, 1971, the very date printed on my birth certificate. That makes Starbucks and me birthday companions, at least according to the paperwork, although my mother would insist that I arrived one day later.

I have never been particularly enthusiastic about what Starbucks eventually became, but I have to admit the coincidence is too good to ignore. The little store selling bags of roasted coffee beans would eventually give us drinks with names long enough to qualify as a short story, some of them sounding less like coffee and more like an Italian opera character having a nervous breakdown.

If we put Vietnam, Led Zeppelin, Rod Stewart, and Starbucks together, it almost feels like attending a strange yet impeccably organized wake, where there is tragedy, music, tears, and bitter coffee.

It is an odd combination, but it gives me a picture of 1971 without pretending that a year can be reduced to one particular mood. There was war, there was music, there was business, there were people making money, people losing money, people falling in love, people breaking up, and millions of people simply trying to get through the day without making a complete mess of things.

And somewhere in Mexico, my mother was dealing with two very small babies, which was enough history for one household.

MY LITTLE CORNER #

The interesting thing about looking back at a year like 1971 is that history makes everything seem much bigger than it probably felt to the people actually living through it. We see the major events now because they survived in books, photographs, recordings, documentaries, and newspaper archives, while the ordinary lives taking place around them have mostly disappeared.

My family was living one of those ordinary lives, surrounded by music, books, good food, and long conversations around the table, and that was the world I knew. I did not wake up every morning wondering what governments were doing or what was happening on the other side of the planet; I had a much more manageable list of concerns, assuming, of course, that a child can have concerns beyond getting fed, getting attention, and discovering how far a little mischief can go before an adult notices.

And this is where something rather strange happened. Years later, I discovered that some of the toys I remember from my childhood had actually been introduced in 1971, the same year I was born.

Weebles were one of them. I remember playing with those little wobbling figures when I was about five or six, and I always wanted the circus. Instead, I got the house.

My brother had another toy from the same era: the Playskool Inchworm, a green, accordion-like worm with yellow wheels that you sat on and bounced up and down to make it move forward. I remember watching him ride around on it, and I had no idea then that the toy itself had entered the world in 1971, only a few weeks before I did.

Years later came the Fisher-Price camper, with its little plastic people and the boat sitting on top. That one wasn’t from 1971, but I remember it just as clearly, which is what makes these things interesting to me now. They are important because they became part of the little world I remember.

Looking back, I remember those years with affection, and I can honestly say that my childhood was a happy one, which does not require me to pretend that everyone else was having the same experience. My corner of the world was simply my corner.

The year that historians now associate with war, political conflict, social change, and famous cultural moments was, for me, the beginning of my own life. I was far too busy growing up to realize that I had been given such an interesting date to work with later.

HELLO? #

Had I known what was going on in the world when I arrived, I might have reconsidered the whole idea of saying hello. So I entered childhood without any knowledge of the larger world. I knew my family, my home, music, books, food, conversations, and the ordinary collection of things that make up a child’s universe, while the rest of humanity carried on with its wars, romances, and general inability to get along.

Years later, when adolescence arrived with its own collection of complications, songs like Reason to Believe began to sound different to me. What had once been simply a song could acquire another meaning after life had supplied a few experiences of its own, and music that once seemed to be about somebody else’s problems could suddenly sound as if it had been written with me in mind.

A SIMPLE QUESTION #

The piece of music I composed began with a simple question, although one question soon led to another, and before long I was wondering whether I remember the 1970s as they actually were or as my memory has chosen to preserve them. Were those years really simpler? Were people happier? Was life easier, or does memory have a convenient way of removing the parts we would rather not keep?

I decided to start with 1971 because it is the year that started everything for me, although the events of that year had obviously started without waiting for my arrival and would have continued perfectly well if I had decided to stay in bed a little longer. But somewhere in Mexico my own story was beginning in a house with a midwife, a mother, a baby girl, and me.

I was busy being born, and that is what makes looking back at a particular year so interesting: history records what happened on the large scale, while memory gives us the much smaller details that made the time feel like our own.

A year can contain war, music, politics, business, love, disappointment, ridiculous amounts of coffee, and a mother trying to figure out what to do with two premature babies, all at the same time, without any of those things cancelling the others out.

History records the big events, but memory keeps the rest. 1971 was the year I arrived, and for that reason alone, it will always be a rather interesting year to me.

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