by Craig Colby
I carry two boxes of record albums out to the car as I leave my parents place in Thunder Bay. Because of the COVID 19 pandemic I’m driving back to Toronto, all 1,556 kilometres, in one day. I did the same on the way up. Driving means I can bring the records of my youth back to Toronto. I’m also hauling an early Christmas gift from my parents, an 8-in-1 record player that also plays CDs, tapes, MP3s, FM radio and hooks up to blue tooth. I put about 80 albums in the trunk for me and my brother, Scott, who has a similar player.
The boxes are heavy. I’d forgotten how much albums weigh. Then I get in the car, plug in my phone and tell it what I music I want to hear.
Beautiful Indifference
It’s late October, just after a fresh snowfall. The trees are frosted along Lake Superior’s rugged north shore. Highway 17 leads me to pillars of mist rising off the lake, occasionally engulfing roadside trees while an unhindered sun illuminates a pale blue sky. My phone signal fades, taking the music with it. I am more isolated here than I have been in decades. Cragged rock faces appear. They’ve been blasted away to make room for the road. I look into the trees beyond the road. Classmates of mine have been lost for days in the Northwestern Ontario forests. Nature is indifferent to our survival.
Our ancestors worked hard to overcome our fragility. That effort continues as we fight this relentless disease. Often those efforts are resisted.
The Ask
I think about the albums in the trunk.
Every album was an act of considered thought. A family member heard a song or an artist, decided they were worth spending money on, then travelled to a record store, bought the album and hauled it home.
Every album was a commitment. Records needed to be cared for. Vinyl discs held by the edges to avoid fingerprints; dust wiped off the surface. After being played the disc had to be replaced in a protective sleeve to avoid scratches.
Every album created a ceremony. You’d put a record on the turntable, carefully lower the needle, then listen to each song as you read the lyrics printed on the sleeve or looked at the album art.
Albums asked something of you. The thought, commitment, and ceremony associated with a record created a bond with the music. That is the true weight of vinyl. Looking through each album brought a flood of memories. The attachment was still there, even for albums I hadn’t listened to in 35 years. Especially for the albums I hadn’t listened to in 35 years.
Albums have been replaced by more and more advanced platforms, ones that were harder to damage, more transportable and held more songs. Each iteration was more convenient and asked less of us.
But there’s a cost to that convenience.
What We Lose When We Gain
Our society is built to give us what we want when we want it. We don’t even want to pay for music anymore, and when we do it’s not much. What’s lost in attachment is gained in entitlement. So on the north shore of Lake Superior, when the signal to our phone dies and the music stops in the middle of a song, we get mad.
We’ve been trained to expect everything from society and little from ourselves. Is it any wonder people struggle to wear masks, social distance and pass on big gatherings at Thanksgiving?
Everything we have has come at a cost, the roads along the north shore, the music we listen to, our health care. The cost has just become more invisible to us.
Don’t get me wrong, progress is good. I can’t play a record while I’m driving, and I don’t want to haul a box of heavy records when I want to listen to B.B. King. We need to move ahead.
But we can’t’ be surprised when we need to pay a price to have the world we want.
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Craig Colby is a television executive producer, producer, director, writer and story editor. He runs a storytelling consulting and production service for businesses. He can be reached at craig@colbyvision.net.