What I Was Listening to When . . .
A Memoir Set to Music
You are always going to love the music you loved when important things happened to you, good or bad. The music evokes the moments and the moments evoke the music.
My book bears the subtitle A Memoir Set to Music. Both halves of the subtitle matter. It is a memoir, following me from nursery to pandemic. It is also a deep dive into the music I encountered along the way. I couldn’t tell my story without talking about the music that went with each step of the journey. And a discussion of the music without my life – that wouldn’t tell you much either.
Let me show you what I mean. Read my opening chapter, of my early childhood as a Foreign Service child in postwar Europe, imbibing from a children’s record a totally misleading assurance that that pampered life would continue. My closing chapter conjures up the more realistic pandemic-era solace I derived from watching musicians collaborate remotely on a Sondheim overture. And you can also view this video of me reading from a chapter in between, about being left off at college, reveling for a moment in solitude and Brubeck.
To make it easier for you to accompany me on this adventure, I’ve assembled most of the songs into a free, publicly-available Spotify playlist, which will enable you to hear what I heard, feel what I felt, then and now.
