SIMPLE HEADPHONE MIND

In the days before the iPod I did not often listen to music through headphones.

I kind of liked the sloppy olio that music made when it mixed with ambient noise.

Long ago I walked around with a boombox, revelling in the way that the opening guitars in Have You Seen Your Mother echoed across the rim of the local sump late at night.

Or how the Sex Pistols version of No Fun bounced off the exterior walls of my high school, Johnny Rotten’s “fuckology” competing with the third-period bell.

Or, perched on the steps of the Haagen-Dazs takeout, how White Riot seemed to accelerate the cars puttering down Old Country Rd.

Alchemy, plain and simple...