Low Sparks

A Gun That Didn't Make Any Noise

From time to time over the years I have had the experience of hearing a song I have listened to maybe hundreds of times before and maybe have even loved, except this time, for no particular reason, I suddenly really "hear" the song for the very first time. The long obscure-to-me lyrics make perfect sense, I can hear each crisp note in the song, the sum of them going together in perfect order. I don't even know what to call this. Sudden hearing? Reverse deja vu? Probably some phrase of Greek origin (the Greeks had a word for everything, after all.)

Recently I was driving home at 3:30 a.m. (don't ask), and the song "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" by Traffic came on, the long, 11-minute LP version. I have known and favored this song for close to 40 years. I even used it in the soundtrack of a movie once. But on this night, for some reason - pensiveness at a late hour? The fact I was practically the only car on the highway? I was really tired? - I really "heard" this song for the first time. I got so far into it, it was a little weird. The lyrics, which I'd long ago memorized, suddenly sounded brand new. Steve Winwood's thin, high-pitched delivery of them was just right. The words, long considered basically meaningless by me, suddenly seemed profoundly, well, profound. They made perfect sense. And the saxaphone that pops up throughout the song was very haunting.

The last of "Low Spark" played out just as I was pulling into my driveway. Perfect. I don't know what to call this phenomenon, this sudden hearing, or what causes it. I am just very grateful it happens to me every once in awhile.

I am assuming this is a fairly common experience for any serious music lover. If it is not, and rather is just another odd personality quirk of mine I have just inadvertently revealed. . . well, forget everything I just said, utterly.

Later.

*********

It wasn't the bullet that laid him to rest,

Was the low spark of high-heeled boys

Heeled boys. . .