A Pocket Full Of Change

For The Jukebox Playing Inside of Your Head

By Robert J. Ottaviani

Whether you bop to pop, nettle with metal, poke around with folk, flock to rock, pay your dues for the blues, flip flop about hip hop, prance to dance, have a hanker-in for Hank or are a spaz about jazz-there’s something for everyone when it comes to music.

I am convinced there is not another medium that can impact you the way the gift of song can. A song can transport you back to a time and place years ago and put you right in that moment. For Rod Stewart it’s late September and he really should be back at school-he laments to “Maggie May”.

For me it’s late September and I’m in my 1968 Chevy impala with my “Maggie May”. It can give a young man enough courage to make that long walk across the high school dance floor and risk rejection at his first high school dance. Not that this happened to “ME” of course but that’s what I hear could happen. It can bring about a performance of great air guitar magnitude when we hear the right song.

A long country road in the summer becomes a runway awaiting take-off as the volume and tachometer rocket upward as well as your spirits. You put down the top in your little Miata and let the wind part your hair, or if you’re like me and don’t have a convertible you can stick your head out the window and drool like a big Irish setter.

I admit I’m an extremist, a music connoisseur, a music aficionado,a veritable music junkie. One of my favorite 80’s band, the great Kings X (insert shameless plug here) had lyrics that went as follows … “over my head I hear music in the air, over my head I hear music … over my head it’s loud and clear, it’s going to my head … music, music, I hear music.”

There’s always music playing in my head like a jukebox and a never ending pocketful of change. I have it set on shuffle. If you think music isn’t impacting ,try getting even a bad song out of your head. I can assure you it will take the better part of a day.

So what is the attraction? Why are we drawn to it’s hypnotic power that has us tapping our feet like Keith Moon pounding out a rhythm or turning a pencil around to drum like we are the second coming of Ginger Baker? I think it’s the essence of freedom. Free your mind, free your soul, set yourself free. For you see the gift of music is essentially free. It’s there for both young and old alike to share in it’s joy and rejoice in it’s beauty. It can liberate, reverberate, celebrate, gyrate, and rejuvenate and you can put it on easy pay as today’s special but I digress.

I’ve heard stories of music bringing a person to tears because of such a deep emotional connection to what they hear. Not that this happened to “ME” of course but that’s what I hear could happen. Allow yourself the opportunity to take a special trip where you can leave your worries and your wallet behind.

Punch your ticket and get on board for we all have a ticket to ride.

Robert J.Ottaviani (Bert) is a cusp born Aries the ram who has lived through summer of love in the late sixties and the hippie culture that bled into the seventies. He has a passion for music,gardening and all things nature … and laffy taffy. He is freakishly aware of music trivia to absurd levels.Most days you can find him playing his guitar or jotting down lyrics.He was so impacted from the moment he first heard the Beatles that he has Beatlemanianized his life,been to Liverpool, England and remains convinced he is the fifth Beatle. He is married to a gentle and lovely vibe of a woman with three wonderful children. He currently lives and resides in strawberry fields forever.