Tonight’s topic comes courteous of the rock band AC/DC. You may not be aware that I was once a fan of that rocking band. Yes, it is true. Although I must admit it was one of those ‘likes by association’ type of things. I was more of a top 40 kind of girl as a teen ager. Yes, I did stray over to The Storm radio station for alternative music now and then, but mostly I was like 90 percent of the high school population in my like of Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, and Depeche Mode. One of my best friends was way more versed in ‘alternative’ rock and tried to educate me a bit by letting me listen to Echo and the Bunny men and Berlin, but I was pretty much mainstream. Boring. I was almost seduced by Pink Floyd one night while waiting for my high school sweetheart outside his house. There was a bunch of guys hanging around and one of them came over and took it upon himself to educate me in what he called the “religion of Floyd.” It was fascinating….and full of crap I thought at the time. I’m pretty sure he was high…..

My room mate in college was into more of the pretty boy bands. Poison, Bon Jovi (remember when he wore make up? He got cuter when he took it off! Not fair!) , and a bunch of other bands that have dissolved into my memory. I listened but didn’t fall for them. When I met Brad, he was even more of a hard rocker, in the ‘classical’ sense. He liked the big boy bands like Rush, Scorpions, and yes…AC/DC.  At that young, impressionable age, I listened to whatever my boyfriend listened to. I liked all music, except country, so it was all good. I remember one time when Brad put a message on my “answering machine” for everyone to hear when they called. It was the song “Welcome to the jungle” and my mother was NOT amused. LOL I was. It was classic.

After we got married, we cleaned up our music selection a lot. I remember putting hundreds of dollars worth of tapes into the dumpster outside our apartment. We wanted good, clean, uplifting music in our home. We basically kept our classical stuff. It felt good to purge like that!  As one would expect, we eased up a bit over the years and built our collection back up, in CD form.

When the kids were real small we were good about only listening to church music or classical music. It was only on long trips that would sometimes turn on the radio and listen to some rocking tunes to keep us from falling asleep at the wheel. On one particularly long trip, in the middle of the night, I was driving and everyone else was asleep. I remember turning on the radio and finding only one station that would play without total static. One guess what it was….no, not hispanic, it was Country music. I found that even though I did not know a single song, I could sing along. It was like a miracle! I realized then that Country music was user friendly and accepted anyone that would listen. Thus began my secret love affair with country.

Brad hated country music and declared that it came straight from the devil. I’m not sure what grounds he had to stand that on….other than his deep love for classic rock. I find that country is easier on my ear drums, the words are easier to understand, and only half as many songs are about alcohol as are the current rock songs. The other half is about good stuff like country, love, family and sticking by your man/woman.  Needless to say, I was a closet country listener for several years…unless I was cleaning the house on a Saturday and getting NO Help from Brad. Then, the stereo would go to country and it would go loud and proud. Just my way of making a point.

Despite our differences in music preference, we had a lot of music in common. We both liked Nora Jones and Sarah McGlaughlin….can’t spell her fricken name, but you know who she is. When ever I would go to a Stampin’ Up! convention and come home with cds from that years entertainment, Brad seemed to love it as much as I did. Even the Ryan Shupe cds….that some would call country but Brad insisted were BlueGrass. Totally different…..whatever.

It is amazing to me now to hear my kids sing along to songs on the radio from my era. AC/DC was such a hard rocking band when I was a teen, but now it is old school and therefore ‘tame.’ Hearing Ethan rock out to TNT makes me wonder what the heck I’m teaching my kids. But then I think to their dad and realize, even with all the crappy music he listened to, he seemed to turn out okay. But it was hard. I remember when we threw out all that music. One of the reasons we did is that just listening to it make him want to do other things he had done in the past while listening to that same music. Like smoke a cigarette or have a beer. He had changed his life and didn’t want that kind of thing in it anymore.

This song came into my head tonight as I was working on a story. I have a character that…well, he needs to drink himself to sleep one night to get to the next day. As I thought about that, I wondered if my writing about a character doing something I don’t consider good would be in some way a form of me condoning what he did. Would I be responsible for my characters actions? I know we are accountable for our thoughts as well as actions but….is this the same thing? I mean, it isn’t a big deal, I’m not writing a steamy romance or anything, just an innocent story…..but still I wonder. Dirty deeds…..how important are they? How UN important are they? I don’t know in this case. I guess I will just sleep on it and let the story tell me. It’s not really my story, its just a story the universe is telling me…I’m just trying to get it right….cause I said so.