Complex Numbers

B minus 6 Days

1988: The Day The Music Died.

Yeah, I know the Music died on February 3, 1959. But for me (which is all that matters), it died on some unremembered day in late 1988.

I was living in a two-bedroom basement not far from where I live now. Pat had moved out, and I'd been unable to find a replacement roommate, so money was tight. My stereo and LP collection (I was still resisting the purchase of CDs, as I lacked a CD player) was in the living room closet, as I was using that space for nothing else and music has always been of paramount importance to me.

My LP collection at that point was over 150 records, including rarities, and super-rarities such as an original pressing of Billy Joel's Cold Spring Harbor. Plus I had my entire collection of singles on 45 rpm discs (who remembers those? They were fun.)

On that fateful day, I opened the door to my apartment and stepped into a foot of water.

The stereo itself survived, being raised off the floor by its case.

The records were destroyed.

Water doesn't destroy records all by itself, of course. But it soaked the album covers, resulting in paper pulp and glue attaching itself to the bottom chord of the records.

I still haven't thrown them away; I simply can't bring myself to do that. They're sitting in a box in the attic of my father's house. It took me until The Rising came out to replace my entire Springsteen collection with CDs; I still haven't replaced some of them, such as Styx's Cornerstone and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (which, as much as I revere Springsteen's entire output, remains my favorite album of all time, and just doesn't sound the same on CD).

I didn't do much listening to music from that point on. It just wasn't the same anymore. I'd been disillusioned; what I thought was forever was gone in a day. Could that incident have influenced my later career, which is focused on drainage and hydrology? Possibly. But I may not have learned my lesson; my entire comics collection is stored in our basement. Still, losing the comics would be sad, but it wouldn't come anywhere near the tragedy of the Day the Music Died.

I had a job, I had a girl
I had something going mister in this world
I got laid off down at the lumber yard
Our love went bad, times got hard
Now I work down at the carwash
Where all it ever does is rain
Don't you feel like you're a rider on a downbound train