The Music I Grew Up On

The very first album that I ever bought was Jim Croce’s Life and Times. I was 14 years old. Probably the best known song from that album was Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown. I was very sad to wake up one morning and hear on the radio that he had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 30. Other favorite songs of his that I loved included Time in a Bottle, Operator, I Got a Name, You Don’t Mess Around with Jim, and I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song. It was this last song that I learned on the guitar in 1979 and sang to my girlfriend Linda Tucker. It was the first time that I ever told her that I love her and began a lifelong romance that is now 32 years old and going strong.

My favorite band was The Doobie Brothers. But I was also a a big fan of The Eagles, Chicago, Elton John, Marshall Tucker Band, Linda Ronstadt, Gordon Lightfoot, Seals and Croft and Jethro Tull. I still have some of those early albums. Of course this was back in the day when an album was actually an album.

My early influences from Christian music included folks like Dogwood, Don Francisco, Amy Grant, and then my favorite Keith Green who I have blogged about before.

My son Tucker and I play this game whenever we are in the car together – usually listening to the Oldies station. Either he or I will ask “Do you know who sings this song?” I’m amazed at how many of the songs from my generation that he knows. I also amaze myself sometimes at how many songs I can still sing even if I haven’t heard them in over 20 years. I think I amazed him (and me) the other day when we were listening to G105 and a song came on that he knew and he asked the question. Without hesitating I gave him the right answer. Nickelback. Did I really know they sang the song? Absolutely not! They were just the first band that popped into my head. For just a moment there good old dad didn’t seem so old to his 20 year old son.

I guess I’m writing all this to reminisce a bit  before I get too old to remember but also to make a point that you already know. Music is powerful. It can touch the soul like almost nothing else. The music we listen to will lodge in our brains and stay there forever. That’s why it’s so important to listen to the right kind of music – or perhaps better to say don’t listen to the wrong kind of music. And let God use music to lead you to His throne where not only will your soul be touched but where you can be sanctified and drawn to worship the Lover of Our Soul.