Our columnist likes to turn up the music in the car so loud that memories overwhelm him. Fasten seat belts. By Mickey Beisenherz
Admitting that you voluntarily decided against the train and in favor of the car in the spring of 2022 is almost tantamount to a letter of confession. And there are many arguments against the automobile.
A clear plus point, however, is the fact that you can unabashedly turn up the sound in your own four metal walls. And that doesn’t mean your own number of phone calls when you yell at the other road user because they think the zipper procedure is a term from the porn industry, but: passionately turning on your favorite music. At an unhealthy volume that you would not be allowed to listen to in your own home or on a Father’s Day tour.
And so on a Tuesday afternoon I slammed from Hamburg to Düsseldorf via the A7, singing the musical milestones of my life. In a mood like Tom Cruise aka “Jerry Maguire” when he comes across Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin” on the radio. Well, I’m missing a few octaves, but anyone who was able to watch me at Hannover as I played Dave Grohl on “My Hero” by the Foo Fighters had to turn pity into admiration. All the memories of the open-air concert with my brother in summer at the trotting track in 2018 came back immediately.
No Corona, no war, no annual flood of the century, and a song about grandmas as environmental pigs would be our biggest problem the following year. Recently deceased drummer Taylor Hawkins, who takes over for Grohl and sings Queen’s “Under Pressure”. Only here goosebumps are unironic, no feeling is embarrassing.
A few bars – and it’s all there again. When I hear 2Pac’s “Me against the World”, I am again the 18-year-old from Castrop-Rauxel, who in absurdly wide trousers and down jackets with cans of beer dragged himself towards the Abitur and worked in construction during the holidays. Just so I could afford a stack of CDs at Saturn Hansa in Dortmund, on top of The Notorious B.I.G. and dr Dre who gave a sound to the lifestyle of provincial chavs.
With Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” I stood crying at the changing table
As soon as the first bars sound, everything is there again: Nirvanaesque parties in cultural centers, the sticky floors, the kissing, the endless marches home in the morning sun because none of us had money for the taxi.
The other day I was sitting in a café in Munich when a Mercedes stopped at the traffic light a few meters away. Through the open window I could hear Brian May warning, “Too Much Love Will Kill You”. That touched me. To hear this rather sticky song so shamelessly loud.
Recording this acoustic aerosol, I was still physically present in my café chair, but mentally I was 15 again when I suffered from quarterly lovesickness in my room. “End of the Road”, “A Groovy Kind of Love” – these songs have guided me through the hardest hours of my youthful pangs of love.
In Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You”, decades later, I stood crying at the changing table. And right now I’m listening to a song that my daughter is trying to sell me as a brand new hit right here in the car: “Macarena”. For me it’s actually been 25 years.
But at that moment, as she shows me the associated dance moves in the passenger seat, I charge the old Hispanic number with new emotions.
Listens to music! Create memories! Let there be “Something in the Air”!
