As a little kid, like maybe seven years old, I would have other kids ask me questions about music. They would ask me about what songs and artists I liked, name things they heard on the radio. To me at that age, radio music had two primary characteristics: all the songs were about love, and all the words were unintelligible. Subject matter and language were both absolutely alien.
So I came to the conclusion, based on my limited evidence, that I just didn't like music. I would say that in response to those questions, and then the other kids would be mystified, even a little concerned. "How can you 'not like' music?" they'd ask. I'd just shrug, thinking to myself that this was something I just wasn't ever going to get.
What I did really like were solitude and PC games. And that year the PC port of Road Rash introduced me to Soundgarden. Then I'd start sneaking off with the albums that my uncle owned, studying the photos and lyrics in the album inserts. I learned lots of new words from those. I'd curl up in my grandpa's chair wearing comically oversized headphones, and zone out while Down on the Upside blasted in my ears. I'd spin Badmotorfinger at night in a clunky old CD player with the volume turned way down so I wouldn't get in trouble for staying up late, the closing notes of "New Damage" the last thing I heard before sleep.
I still felt isolated as all hell. Nobody my age shared this taste with me. And outside of my age group it was just my uncle, and-- to put it mildly-- we didn't get along. I accepted that this was something I would just enjoy alone. But all of a sudden I liked music. I'd learned how to listen.
I went to see Soundgarden: Live from the Artists' Den the other night, and was reminded of having that little epiphany at seven years old. Also this picture of Chris Cornell in a Road Rash t-shirt makes me smile.
