Mama, I’m Coming Home
Mama, I’m Coming Home
Years ago, a thirteen-year old kid with a serious jones for The Beatles, Buck Owens and 60s jangle bands was hanging out with a slightly older friend.
“You should listen to this. It’s cool.”
As is the case with most kids going through those mid-teen years, I certainly wanted a piece of that cool. He dropped an album on the turntable and handed me the cover. That cover was an ominous-looking affair with what we wound up calling “the green chick” (something like that. Keeping this piece PG-13) on it.
Rarely has the mood been cast so well. About the time I’m getting engrossed in the photo, the thunderstorm starts and a couple of seconds later, two Panasonic Thrusters (don’t ask) let out a bellowing bass line and monster-sized power chord. Immediately, I’m pulled into the sounds coming out those speakers. The album didn’t snap, crackle and pop…it plodded and wound to what felt like an inevitable conclusion. And I was completely hooked.
This wasn’t music for prep school kids with a fresh Flock Of Haircut and a trust fund, these were the sounds of the weird, the outcast and the working class. Meat was on the bone, here. And I wanted more of these sounds. At that moment, there simply wasn’t enough distortion or reverb in any sonic experience. It was dark, stark and the voice in the middle of this trudge to doom sounded as if it were born to do nothing else. It was perfectly mated to the music. I would eventually buy the entire catalog up to Heaven and Hell. Of course.
I was saddened to see the voice of that sound silenced today. It’s been more than a few years since that vinyl-tracked moment, and certainly my own tastes would expand and change quite a bit. Like most things from youth, your taste for it sorta comes and goes. However, I will forever be grateful to both Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne for the finest “fuck you” style meet & greet to the harder and heavier side of the music which played such a big role in my own life.
It’s been a fun ride, my man.
-Quillbilly Jeff
