How I Narrowly Escaped Being Buried Alive in the Blues

Surviving high school requires an exceptional soundtrack

When I think of my teens, I think of the blues. Not just the musical genre, but the feelings of heartache, disappointment, and despair it represents. They come with the territory when you’re coming of age, and I came of age at a time when the blues genre was having a resurgence. Everyone from the Rolling Stones to Frank Sinatra was singing the blues. They had good reason, too; we all did. They were dark days.

The Rolling Stones song “Midnight Rambler” was inspired by the serial killer Albert DeSalvo, aka The Boston Strangler. It appears on their album Let It Bleed. This was the first record we got in the mail when my sisters and I subscribed to the Columbia Record Club.

I remember looking at the flip side of the album cover, where the cake on the front is shown smashed to pieces, with a feeling of deep foreboding. It was my first inkling that music might be dangerous.

The Vietnam War was in full swing when I was young, with thousands coming home in body bags each year, kids like us. Assassinations, riots, serial killers, and unrest were constantly in the news.

We were in abject fear of nuclear war. Young men had the draft hanging over their heads, some escaping to Canada with no hope of return. Families were divided by both distance…

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