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amethysting.livejournal.com
I Feel the Earth Move
Carole King
Tapestry
1971
It's funny that, up until an hour ago, I had no idea what song I was going to post this week. And now, a dozen listens later, I'm so excited to be sharing another one of my all-time favourites with you.
In the absence of Buffy, I have turned to that old stalwart, Gilmore Girls. I have seen every episode so many times that I can leave the room and come back without feeling like I've missed a thing. I tend to hit "next" just before the theme song is going to start so that there is no jolt between the cold open and the start of the show. Tonight I was in and out of the kitchen, tossing a salad together and frying a grilled cheese, so I managed to hear the theme song--Carole King's "Where You Lead"--all the way through. It made me stop. It hit me with that little jolt I was trying to avoid all along. It made me think about Tapestry.
The first time I heard this album was in my dad's white, boxy, SUV. The car had just sort of appeared. I was in grade 9 or 10. It was kind of like a big, white marker of how my dad had this life that was kind of separate from the one my mom, brother and I lived. I liked (and like) sitting in the passenger seat of a car with my dad driving because there was (is) always music. So many things I had never heard of (I would always get a kind of GEEZ!C'MON!EYEROLL when I asked my dad who was singing a particular song, but I asked anyway). A taste of things I was so resistant to, at first, and sometimes only grew to love years later.
I remember my dad and I went to Wal-Mart after dinner some random, Spring evening (a weeknight, I'm certain). I don't think we went with any particular purpose in mind. My dad likes a good deal. When he stopped at one of those bright, red, cardboard bins in the middle of an aisle near the electronics section, I wrinkled my nose (and probably rolled my eyes, haha). The bin was filled with hundreds of cheap cassette tapes. I feigned interest when my dad pulled a copy of Tapestry out of the pile. The cover seemed dull; dark and blurry. I could make out a woman, frizzy hair, cats.
My dad was so excited that he peeled the cellophane off the tape in the parking lot on the way back to the car. He slid Tapestry into the tape deck, buckled his seat belt and started the engine. With the power on, the tape was pushed all the way in and the car was filled with that hissing sound that marks the beginning of a cassette tape. And then...this song. Those pounding piano chords. They were like a stomping foot. A stomping foot that wasn't angry, but rather a reaction to being filled with something so big that it can't keep still. That voice...I wasn't quite sure about it, but I liked its warmth. I liked (and like) that one second beat between "I feel the...earth...move...under my feet." What I did know was that I was listening to something very special. I could feel the music vibrating out of the speaker in the side of the passenger door and into my leg. It seemed to thrum right through me, like an electric shock.
When we pulled into the driveway, I told my dad that I could bring the tape in for him, if he wanted me to. That maybe, while I had it, I would just listen to that first song one more time. Tapestry eventually set up camp in my room. I figured that if I just acted like it was mine all along, my dad would eventually forget about it. If I ever did actually give it back--and I'm not sure that I did--it was only when I got a copy of the re-release on CD a few years later.
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