Backing Track
A reflection on music as inheritance and the memories that don't need a voice to be felt.
Somewhere north of Minneapolis, an iPhone’s guitar riff text tone rings loudly. Then again, and again.
I’m texting my dad screenshots of himself, at 18 or so, playing with his band in a garage. He’s wearing Birkenstocks, short denim shorts, and a t-shirt on which he’s written his band name. He designed the logo.
My dad customizes his text ringtones for his nearest and dearest. Mine is a guitar riff. I don’t play guitar, but I enjoy that he does. He and I appreciate music together - he’s the reason I do.
*
Growing up, we went camping. Our extended family, over a dozen of us spanning generations, circled the campfire every evening. My dad’s guitar was the backing track to our smores roasting. By evening's end, fresh-air sleepy, we’d sit mesmerized by the flames, singing along with his soft-spoken lyrics. He played Zeppelin, Bowie, and Minnesotan bands like the Sycamores and the Gear Daddies. The last of which had a song called Color of Her Eyes that I realized as an adult was about cheating, but with the sound of longing in his voice, I knew he sang it for my late mom. Lyrics are the least important part of music.
I can still see my sister and I on either side of him, heads on his shoulders, feeling the music together.
*
This spring, my dad gave my sister and me flash drives containing all our old family videos he’d converted from VHS. It took me many months to open the gift because, in my mind, my mom is a still image. I worried that seeing her move might alter my idea of her, given that my idea of her has long outlived her.
This dark winter evening, seeing the memory stick on my desk with my two young boys in the room, I felt the curiosity that comes with the absence of fear. I wanted to show my kids their grandma.
I open the first file in my family’s video album. Chronologically is the only way to handle forgotten memories. Lou crawls up on my lap. He settles in. The first person on my screen isn’t family but someone I recognize.
It’s Martin Zellar, frontman of the Gear Daddies, I’d met Martin long ago when I longed to work in music, and I found my way into the only event production company in the northern Minnesotan town where I went to college. We’d booked Martin for a few gigs. I met his kid. I think there’s a photo of us all somewhere.
In the video, Marin talks in his nasally voice for a ripped local broadcast documentary. He looks like a child. He’s so happy and proud. Then, the documentary cuts from an interview to a stage, and my memory transports me further back. The first song his band plays is Color of Her Eyes. I look down at Lou’s auburn hair, and his blue eyes look up at me and then back at the screen. I see his face in a reflection - lip agape. He’s captivated. The song ends. Lou claps.
“Again?” I ask.
He claps.
*
This fall, my husband and I played Pirate Life by Daniel Tashian through our Bluetooth speaker. Daniel is a band-guy-turned-children's songwriter who’d come through my Spotify based on our listening habits - Caspar Babypants, Hoppalong Andrew - musicians who make children's songs with a love of both children and music. In the song, Daniel Tashian begins, “You girls want to sing the song about pirates?” and his daughter's small voices respond, “Yes!” And, together, they sing this song about how much fun they’d have as pirates. They’re having fun, singing about the fun. And I have fun with my boys, dancing to the song of them having fun. Lou stood near the speakers. He loves to feel music with his whole body. He thrashed his head and bounced his knees. Henry sat in my lap and let me rock him like we were on a sailboat. Locked eyes - me smiling, him serious. He was studying the words and trying to repeat them.
Henry, my eldest, was the first baby to whom I sang lullabies. When I was a kid, my dad sang You Are My Sunshine and Stairway to Heaven, so I sang those to Henry.
“Not the sunshine song,” Henry would sometimes say, or, “Not Pop Pop’s song!”.
So I mixed in some other tunes. The first time I sang The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow was the first time he heard it. It made him sob.
“Again, mommy,” he said through tears.
With music, memories aren’t required for feeling.
*
I pause the ripped Gear Daddies doc and turn toward my babies.
But Henry says, “Hey, I was enjoying that.”
So I say, “Oh, alright,” and press play again.
The doc ends, and static comes. Then, the face of my great-aunt fills the screen. The camera pans to my dad on a dim stage in a shut garage. He’s wearing Birkenstocks, his legs skinnier than I’d ever seen, and his posture teenaged. He’s playing the opening riff to Whole Lotta Love. Lou and I stare, captivated. He leans forward. Henry sits up behind us.
“That’s Pop Pop,” I say.
“Pop Pop?”
“Yeah, Pop Pop.”
I take a screenshot and text it to my dad.
*
My boys have heard my dad play here and there - acoustic, cross-legged, on the carpet - the same way he played for my sister and me in the evenings. Our lullabies weren’t acapella. I remember a few times, after my mom passed, requesting he play again and again, and he did. My longing was insatiable, so he brought a boombox to me with Zeppelin’s IV album inserted. He pressed play on Stairway, low volume. I fell asleep that way.
In the last decade or so, my dad has taken to playing rhythm; his fingers are no longer used to licks. My husband, Joe, was in a band in his youth, too. I’ve seen photos of them playing atop a van at an outdoor festival. He was 15 and still had baby fat in his cheeks. He bought a guitar just before Louis was born. A used Fernandez Stratocaster that he restrung while sitting on our living room rug. My dad gifted him a strap for his birthday.
Joe plays for us some mornings. Wild layered jams born from his imagination. His fingers still got it, but he wasn’t made to memorize chord progressions, nor sing while strumming.
Joe introduced Henry to both of his favorite songs - Hot Gossip’s I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper, which Henry calls ‘Jupiter Dance’ and Booty Man by comedian-come-performer Tim ‘Booty’ Wilson. He’s too young for the ass-appreciation jokes, but he sings along anyway.
I remember the first time Joe played the track years ago when our Bluetooth speaker was in our kitchen in Minneapolis. Joe was cooking New Year's Day dinner, and my dad was pulling something out of our freezer. We all laughed and danced on our linoleum.
“Is he saying what I think he’s saying?” my dad asked my husband.
“Yeah,” Joe laughed.
The track ended, and Henry said, “Play that Booty song again, Daddy.”
We still call it ‘the Booty Song.’
*
I’ve been practicing the harmonica since I learned I was pregnant. I imagined I’d take it up during my golden years - a hobby for when I had more time and less mobility, but it was 2020, and there wasn’t much else to do. I bought a blues harp and watched a couple of YouTube videos until I decided to find someone to guide me.
I saw Rollo's poster through the shop window of a music store. We met soon after in a park where I’d had an early date with Joe. I biked, knees peddling out to the sides of my bump. Rollo pressed me to consider what songs I wanted to learn. He said he didn’t believe in beginners' tracks. Musicians had to have passion to practice. The first song I learned was You Are My Sunshine. I’ll never forget what Rollo said after I’d performed it without help.
“Your boy will appreciate this one day. I bet he already is.”
I’m still working on Stairway.
*
The second video on the flash drive family album is the day of my birth. I see my mom - her auburn hair, blue eyes - full of life. Moving, speaking.
“That’s your grandma,” I say.
There’s something about her voice that’s familiar. Is it my aunt, my sister? The sound makes me smile. I’m surprised. Then, on film, I’m baptized. Then, I’m two months old, and my mom pans to my dad, who sits crossed-legged on the carpet in sweatpants and sings, “She’s my baby / I don’t mean maybe.” Then my dad sets me in a chair and sings to me again. He hands me a toy rattle. I shake it. He claps.
Henry comes to my side. He places his hand on my leg and says, “Mom, it’s time to pause this for now. You can enjoy it again tomorrow.”
I clap a single clap. Then, I help my boys get to the table for dinner.