Blue Windows and Stars

There it was, back in the day, probably about 1963, a record album in the hands of best friend Johnny. His older brother, a navy man, had brought it from across the ocean. It was a 33 rpm LP record album . . . a collection of songs, old songs, what was called folk music, sung by a girl, Joan Baez, whose mission in life was to retrieve these melodic stories and circulate them into the hearts andminds of Americans. The album notes, on the back cover of the record sleeve, had been composed by some fellow named Bob Dylan. I remember this phrase: “In my youngest years, I used to kneel on the hillside beside the railroad track and tear the grass out of the ground. . . and the sound of her voice. . .” It doesn’t make sense; I guess Bob was moved by thesound of Joan’s vibrato voice, and her heart beating with the tunes and stories of antiquity. . . from England, from across the ocean: “before you step on board, sir, your name I’d like to know. . .oh, they call me Jackaroe.” But all that changed one night; while laying in bed at night, listening to thetransistor radio, when I heard these words: “She was just seventeen; you know what I mean; and the way she looked. . . was way beyond compare. Now I’ll never dance with another, since I saw her standing there.” What it was was the beginning of Beatle era. Volumes could be written it, how they had listened to old 45’s of Little Richard and a host ole black folk of the deep south, where I just happened to be growing up. But this life is not really about music. It’s really about life and death. When it comes to death. . . there we were all in different places. . . November 22, 1963, my place was in a 7th grade classroom in Baton Rouge, when the Catholic school principle, Sister Georgia, came in and told us that President Kennedy had been shot. I just had to put that in here; I don’t know why. . . except to say that life takes a tragic turn sometimes, and we remember. . . Dallas Nov22 dealey plaze. . . 9:11 World Trade Center. Our parents’ generation had their own tragedy to deal with: World War II. But getting back to the popular music. Back in our parents’ generation, they had the big bands. . . Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, with all their brassy big band arrangements, and crooners, like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald. In my g-generation, things were different. Radio waves were dominated by Elvis, and then along came Bo Diddly, then the Motown sound, the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, the Supremes. . . And then along came, for us folky types, Judy Collins, singing “There’s a young man that I know; his age is 21; comes from down in southern Colorado, Just out of the service, and he’s looking for . . .someday soon. . . going with him someday soon.” Well, Judy’s fellow, “just out of the service” was probably one of the survivors from Vietnam, which was a big deal, back in that day. In 1970, my freshman year at LSU, the US Defense Dep’t initiated a draft lottery. My number was 349. Many others were not so lucky. My friend Johnny — whose brother had had the Joan Baez album — he did go to Vietnam. Thank God he came back. At the end of my freshman year at LSU, June 1971, I took a job with the Southwestern Publishing Company (of Nashville Tennessee), selling dictionaries, door to door in southern Ohio. One weekend, my sales manager drove us up to Columbus, Ohio, where we watched a movie, “The Strawberry Statement.” The movie was about students protesting at some university. I think it was Columbia University. There was a scene in the movie that, for whatever reason, sticks in my mind, even unto today. I don’t know why. Maybe it wasthe imagery, the night-time imagery, or maybe it was the sound track, the song that was sung . . . the high voice of Neil Young. . . “Blue blue windows behind the stars. . . yellow moon on the rise. . . big birds flying across the skies, throwing shadows on our eyes”

I don’t know why the scenario in Neil’s song resides so vividly in my memory. It must be related, in some funky or providential way, to the album I made years later, which featured — not a blue window and big birds — but a golden window and an angel. . .

It’s funny the tidbits of life you remember in this long trek (my 74th year) from birth to the other side, whatever that is. . . from birth to . . . as Dr. Martin Luther King had said on the night before he was assassinated in Memphis. . . ”But I’m not worried about that now; I’ve been to the mountaintop, and I’ve seen the promised land! I may not get there with ya (the “promised land”)” That “promised land” of which Martin spoke was the freedom promised to all American citizens by our Constitution and by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Dr. King knew he would be going to one “promised land” or the other. . . the promised land of America (with its Constitution, Bill of Rights and Emancipation Declaration that President Lincoln had declared) or, farther along. . .the the Promised Land of heaven, the place where Jesus went after the powers-that-be had executed him on a cross and laid him in a tomb. Just believe that there are, indeed, blue, or golden, windows beyond stars where we who believe in Jesus’ Resurrection will be taken into eternal life with Him. King of Soul