Heart music

Anyone remember picture discs?

Pictured above: Linda Ronstadt’s Living in the USA on our turntable. Her music was part of the soundtrack to my life in the ’70s and ’80s.

Last Christmas my husband gave me a copy of Simple Dreams, her 2013 memoir.

We’d seen The Sound of My Voice documentary in 2019. It took me back to the days of vinyl spinning and speakers blaring, and it reminded me just how much I admired the sound of Ronstadt’s voice.

After playing in Ronstadt’s band, Don Henley and Glenn Frey formed the Eagles.

It wasn’t just her voice. It was her life story, starting in Arizona with her musical family, and her ascent from small clubs to rock arenas to theatre, standards, Nelson Riddle, and mariachi.

As soon as I finished reading her memoir, I dug out our 1977 Simple Dreams vinyl. That’s when I learned that my husband had given his mom the record for her birthday, probably bought with lawnmowing money.

I’d forgotten the simple joy of hearing the needle drop on some well-worn vinyl and reading the track-by-track liner notes.

She covers It’s So Easy (Buddy Holly/Norman Petty), Blue Bayou (Roy Orbison/Joe Melson), Poor Poor Pitiful Me (Warren Zevon), and Tumbling Dice (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards).

“Articulate and engaging. — The Boston Globe

Her discography lists 31 albums, starting in 1967 and ending in 2006. That doesn’t count compilation LPs. Songwriters include Bob Dylan, Gerry Goffin/Carole King, Jackson Browne, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, J.D. Souther, Jimmy Cliff, Phil Everly, Karla Bonoff, Smokey Robinson, Anna McGarrigle, Dolly Parton, Tom Petty, and dozens more.

Starting out in a male-dominated musical field often overshadowed by excessive drug use, she rarely missed a beat fronting her band.

She had an early hit with Michael Nesmith’s Different Drum.

In her story, Ronstadt writes about “heart music,” a reference to the McGarrigle sisters and one of their songs and lyrics.

Music often defies categorization. But regardless of genre, certain artists and songs have been some of my life touchstones — my heart music. I turn to them for company, familiarity, consolation, encouragement, solidarity, memories.

A few years back I was browsing at Eden in the East Village when I heard a familiar song by an unfamiliar British artist. I was immediately affected by the Lianne La Havas interpretation of I Say a Little Prayer that Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote for Dionne Warwick in 1967.

Love songs inevitably spill into my heart music. I found Aretha Franklin’s I Say a Little Prayer on a list of the 50 best love songs of all time.

Elvis sang Can’t Help Falling in Love in 1961. Dylan recorded Make You Feel My Love in 1997. I’ve heard both at recent family weddings.

My dad walked me down the aisle to Here, There, Everywhere by the Beatles.

I can’t write about heart music without mentioning my husband, a solid guitar player and singer with a few songwriting credits. In his day, he crushed These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.

And I can’t write about Ronstadt’s longevity and success without crediting her choice of songs and songwriters.

For her 1989 Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind album, Ronstadt recorded Adios, a Jimmy Webb song. Webb wrote Wichita Lineman and many other hits.

Adios tells the story of a relationship that ran its course. She sings a line in the first verse that kills me. If you’re unfamiliar with the song and backup vocalist, I won’t spoil the surprise.

My son singing for his final project at Southwest Iowa Community College in 2015.

One absolute heart song for me — John Lennon’s Beautiful Boy.

My beautiful boy earned a professional music degree and plays kick-a** bass. I’ve watched him perform from grade-school gyms on up to bigger stages. But it’s the memory of him practicing Black Bear Stomp on piano that still melts my heart.

He’s more than qualified to write about music. I’m not. My musical education is limited to what I learned in the History of Rock and Roll and History of Jazz at the University of Iowa and working at mall record shops.

I introduce my limited record-store cred for one reason: High Fidelity. Based on the book by Nick Hornsby, the 2000 film version featured John Cusack (Rob Gordon) as the owner of a failing record store in Chicago.

The 2020 reboot premiered on Hulu last Valentine’s Day with Zoë Kravitz as Robyn “Rob” Brooks, owner of Championship Vinyl. Although it was canceled after one season, the gender flip was a hit with me.

Cusack also appeared in Say Anything with Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes.

Countless films have reconnected me to an old song or introduced me to new music.

In 2007 my husband and I happened to catch Once, a little Irish film with Glen Hansard (the Frames) and Markéta Irglová playing two struggling musicians in Dublin. I fell hard.

When Hansard and Irglová — a real-life couple for a time — toured as the Swell Season, we road-tripped to see them in Minneapolis and Chicago.

And in 2014 we flew to NYC to see the Broadway musical Once on Valentine’s Day.

Me fangirling outside the Jacobs Theatre on 45th Street, NYC, February 14, 2014.

I’m wearing my Once shirt at the Des Moines performance with my musical “Rickapedia.”

Heart music, for me, can be happy, sad, bittersweet, or even slightly dark or haunting. Lucinda Williams on Changed the Locks and Richard Thompson’s The Ghost of You Walks come to mind.

Hearts, as we all know, don’t always break evenly. Some are shattered. Some cheat, others get cheated on. And sometimes there’s a very thin line between love and hate.

Some of the best songs marry singers with lyrics.

Stevie Wonder wrote Isn’t She Lovely when his daughter was born. Joy. Eric Clapton recorded Tears in Heaven after his son died. Grief. Bono’s Sweetest Thing is said to be an apology to his wife for working in the studio on her birthday. Forgiveness. Coldplay’s Chris Martin sang Fix You to console Gwyneth Paltrow after her father’s death. Consolation.

I don’t know who Steve Earle wrote this song for, but it sounds like it came straight from the heart, and I like the sentiment:

Valentine’s Day

I come to you with empty hands I guess I just forgot again I only got my love to send On Valentine's Day

I ain't got a card to sign Roses have been hard to find I only hope that you'll be mine On Valentine's Day

I know that I swore that I wouldn't forget I wrote it all down, I lost it I guess There's so much I want to say But all the words just slip away

The way you love me every day Is Valentine's Day

To borrow a lyric from Elvis Costello’s Alison — recorded by Ronstadt on Living in the USA — “I’m not trying to get too sentimental like those other sticky valentines.”

But I do hope you’re in the company of some good heart music.

© 2021 by Catherine Broderick Medina