C'mon baby, it's time to rock

One reason (although not the only one) I bother to maintain my eMusic subscription: Finding lost treasures, and how much simpler it is to get them.

Even when I was an adolescent and teen I had an appreciation of music from prior to my birth. That's not suggesting I didn't also like contemporary music, but I'd sometimes change the radio to the oldies station; I suppose a had a nostalgia for a time I'd missed (or, perhaps, that I'd experienced in a previous life if we go the reincarnation route). Maybe even in my youth I was ahead of my time in perceiving that everything used to be better in music.

Anyway, one night this week while on the eMusic site I came across a compilation album called R 'n B: From Doo-Wop to Hip-Hop. I forget what link or search directed me to that but it probably was something about trying to find early rhythm 'n blues. While glancing at the tracks I spotted Roy Hamilton's late '50s hit "Don't Let Go":

My mind traveled back to my mid teens (so, a few years in to the '80s) and hearing that song on KRTH ("K-Earth"), the long-running oldies station here in Southern California (which is still broadcasting as an oldies station). I was so taken by the song by that I called the station. It must have been during a lull in the day, as not only did I get through but the on-air DJ answered (rather than some intern). I recall excitedly asking "Who did that 'Don't Let Go' song?" and the DJ answering it was Roy Hamilton, then started to note how it was actually one of Elvis' favorite songs, and he probably was going to reveal more about it (which likely reinforced the supposition it was a slow time, as ordinarily DJs would not have such time to be chatty) but I specifically remember cutting him off with a curt "Thank you" and hanging up (presumably so I could write it down before I forgot). I don't think I meant to be rude; I merely had little room in my mind to focus on anything other than that immediate need for that specific information.

I went to a record store (probably Tower) at my earliest opportunity (but that was probably at least a few weeks later, given that I wasn't old enough to drive) and found the 7-inch of "Don't Let Go," which I still have to this day.

However, as I rarely actually put on any vinyl these days (although I do still have a functioning turntable) I haven't listened to that in years. And the trickier nature of recording from the turntable to the computer (it can be done but is nowhere near as simple as ripping from CDs) the song had never made its way in to my library of mp3's, and, regrettably, had fallen out of my listening pool.

At least, until that night this week, when I downloaded it with a single click, and was listening to on my iPod the next morning. No waiting weeks to get to a store. No recording it on a cassette to listen to on a Walkman (my portable method in past decades). Mere seconds of downloading… all while sitting in my living room.

The music may or may not really have been better back then but the technology certainly is better now.

Of course, now that the song has made its way into the library (living, as it were, as a file on a hard drive that can be transferred easily to another hard drive, etc.) does that suggest that it won't have the opportunity to lapse into this nether region I had with the record, where technically I had it but was unlikely to actually listen, and thus not allow for the same re-discovery some 25 years down the road?

Then again, might it be folly to think mp3's will still be around 25 years from now? Will those days when I'm approaching retirement (and waxing nostalgically just in general) also make me wistful for the days when I had to put songs on a small device and listen through headphones rather than merely have them sent wirelessly to the receiver implanted in my skull (as I expect we'll all have by 2035)?

I'm sure I'll think: Those were the days. Then blink and listen to the song again.

(What sort of subscription that will entail I cannot begin to anticipate.)