The other night I played guitar for about an hour to ease my way into a sleepy state. My fingers found their way into some of the songs I used to do in the ’60s – which then passed for dirty songs – a label more symptomatic of American society’s smutty-mindedness than anything else. While playing, I realized that when I was young, I was more interested in the words, while now my hands seem more interested in the structure of the progressions and melody. This appears to be an everyday occurrence, that we begin liking something for one reason, and then our appreciation matures.
Maybe it shows a tendency in our minds to avoid waste, admit that we were wrong or avoid abandoning that we have invested much time.
It could also be part of life’s satire that things get turned upside down.
But I reflect on relationships that mature over the years, crafts that take on new meaning, and skills that evolve. It’s certainly not by some trick of planning. After some thought, I’ve decided it is a sort of unconscious thrift or parsimony. Our mind inquires and finds deeper meanings in what has fascinated us.
I rarely paid attention to the words, with the exception of those by musicians who wrote their own music, yet I never learned the words, just heard and processed their meaning in the context of the music. I was a lazy listener, I suppose. In a way, the music and lyrics always seemed new and fresh.