Music got us through the insanity of training. Not while we were training, of course. But any time we had free time. Riding in John Ormbrek's tan VW station wagon. Or hanging around the barracks on weekends. (We were lucky that we had a few extended weekends because we performed well during the "Dog & Pony shows" for visiting dignitaries.) Or from the jukebox at the "slop shoot" joint not far from our barracks. Someone always had a radio on or music going. I carried around a paperback book of Rolling Stone album reviews that I read whenever I could. Casey Kassem became a familiar voice since I had not listened to an AM radio broadcast in years. (At the A.U. Morse wallpaper warehouse, we listened exclusively to KLOS FM.)
I cannot impress upon the reader how diversionary the music became. How associated in my mind with Marine OCS and those ten weeks that I now look back upon fondly. I cannot hear one of the songs listed below and not remember it all, have it all come flooding back into my thoughts, as if the gates of my memory opened wide to those days and that place and there never was another place or time.
I'm just going to list them below in no particular order. (As I look through the charts from that Spring, some songs simply never registered while others were primarily associated with those days.)
I am starting with the week ending March 25th (a song was already on the charts that week unless otherwise marked):
America: A Horse With No Name
Don McLean: Starry, Starry Night & American Pie
Neil Young: Old Man(4) & Heart of Gold
Aretha Franklin: Day Dreaming
The Sylistics: Betcha By Golly Wow
Paul Simon: Mother and Child Reunion
Roberta Flack: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Nilsson: Without You
Bread: Everything I Own
T. Rex: Bang A Gong (Get It On)
Malo: Suavecito
Al Green: Look What You Done For Me(2)
The Fifth Dimension: (Last Night) I Didn't Get To Sleep(2)
Jr. Walker and the All Stars: Walk In The Night(2)
Ringo Starr: Back Off Boogaloo(2)
The Chi-Lites: Oh Girl(3)
Todd Rundgren: I Saw The Light(3)
Three Dog Night: The Family of Man(1)
Carly Simon: Legend In Your Own Time(1)
Cat Stevens: Morning Has Broken(2)
Elton John: Rocket Man(5)
Crosby & Nash: Immigration Man(5)
Bill Withers: Ain't No Sunshine (this was on the juke box of the slop shoot)
(1) Debuted week of March 25th
(2) Debuted week of April 1st
(3) Debuted week of April 8th
(4) Debuted week of April 29th
(5) Debuted week of May 6th
I would make a tape for my buddy Dennis Zito of these songs. But that was so long ago, I doubt it he has the tape any longer or remembers the songs a warmly as I still do.
No comments:
Post a Comment