Diana Ross and The Supremes

It began with Pink Floyd. 

While this would explain a lot about me, that would also be fiction.

The earliest memory I can recall of me listening to music for comprehension is one I recall of a hot summer day somewhere between age 3 and 4. The music was not from the Pink Floyd catalogue. It was from the catalogue of Diana Ross and the Supremes.

When I say “listening to music for comprehension" I am talking about the process of actively listening to music with the intent of understanding what the performer is trying to convey to you as an audience member. Comprehensive listening is a form of listening where one is doing their level headed best to fully engage in the practice of listening as thoroughly as possible to what is being presented in an effort to thoroughly understand what is being presented. Whatever response you may or may not have is secondary to the comprehension you seek. When you are engaged in this activity you seek to focus exclusively on this as a behavior. All other activities and behaviors are considered potential distractions that lie in the way. To submit to such distractions may cause you to miss crucial context and destroy your understanding of what has been presented. 

Listening is a critical part of the conversational process. Without it we would have a much more limited understanding of the world that surrounds us. Listening is a tool of sorts. We use this tool to digest the world that surrounds us and to facilitate our search for answers. The conversations to which we apply this tool are the relationships created between all of the messages that are sent through all of the various channels available to us and includes all of the responses to those messages.

We humans converse with everything. Our significant other. Our children. Our dogs. Nature. Ourselves. The table leg stubbed your toe into may get an earful. 

Comprehensive listening contrasts with passive listening, a behavior in which is one is not focused on the conversation at hand at all. As a species we do an incredible amount of passive listening. I suspect we are best at this form of listening simply because it is what we do the overwhelmingly most. It is likely our default method of listening. It is the auto pilot listening one engages when one thinks one is not listening. We don't after all, turn off our listening. It is always operating in one form or another. It simply recedes away into the background until we require it to be brought back to the forefront; waiting until some message comes in through some channel that alerts us to engage in different form of listening.

Conversations are not limited to only verbal interactions between individuals or groups. Other forms of communication may use senses beyond our ears and our voice. Visuals or touch may be used, for example, to leverage our ocular and tactile senses respectively. Conversations extend beyond formal and informal channels and includes all forms of art. 

Isn't music, before all else, a conversation?

For example, you may be sitting in the car thinking about this or that while the radio is playing. You will periodically find yourself suddenly participating within its conversation; "Oh I love this song! It is about those fantastic days! The words! So concise and to the point!"

The song has communicated through words and instrumentation a message to you. Your ears received it in such a manner that you actively, perhaps only briefly, engaged yourself enough to comprehend the words and you found yourself emotionally responding to them in a pleasant manner. Perhaps you even bobbed your head to the beat. 

Just as quickly you will check right back out of that conversation and you will begin a new conversation elsewhere. Why? Because you’ve heard the song a million times before. You may love it, but what more is there to say about it? Perhaps a friend is riding copilot and you say "This song reminds me of that one time where I was at the beach and my friend Becky..."; whereby you then journey into a long conversation about Becky that has nothing to do with the song other than it reminded you of Becky. Maybe you had already wanted to talk about Becky, and the song was merely a happy coincidence providing a convenient segue into this new conversation? The song plays along in the background, but you are no longer engaged with it as your attention has moved well beyond the song itself as you once again passively listen to the music coming out of the speakers as you now converse with your copilot about Becky. 

Refutational listening is another primary type of listening us humans employ. This type of listening applies to the overwhelming majority of people who engage in any form of debate or aggressive verbal disagreement. This sloppy form of auditory focus seeks to disrupt rather than to construct. It need not be accurate in its representation of context, facts or rationality. It simply requires a hook; a small connection to whatever other communication was in the air at the time. The behavior of refutational listening often perpetuates devolutionary primitive practices; they are not the practices of sophisticated humans seeking to expand knowledge. Rather they are used to accentuate egos, crush dissent, and to confuse or befuddle. Be aware that their DNA are found across almost all of humanity. Maybe even within you.

One would think that those who engage in refutational listening would prefer comprehensive listening instead? After all, how can one refute that which one does not first comprehend? How can you articulate a masterfully delivered response and not know of that which you speak? Ironically, many engaged in refutation listening misunderstand that they entirely fail at listening for comprehension. They fathom themselves playing some higher level game that doesn’t exist but at which they alone have mastered.

Regrettably, it is not a requirement that one comprehends that which they seek to refute. It is actually of no benefit to do such if the goal is primarily refutation rather than comprehension. Under such circumstances comprehension is rendered meaningless. A complete waste of time for any participant. The majority of conversation in the digital and public sphere demonstrates and reaffirms and underscores this daily. 

Th goal of refutation listening is simply to execute a contrarian response to the initially presented perspective. Even the most primitive of us can excel with this strategy. One need present either a direct refutation or a contrarian passive aggressive comment to initiate this behavior. "I do not believe what you say." "That sounds unlikely." "Smart people can plainly see that what you say is not true!"

Between the age of 3 and 4 I would have had the basics of this behavioral pattern down. The word ”no”, short for “no-no”, is a commonly used refutational retort in that every toddler learns. They learn it through example from the adults in their life. It is simple to say. It is easy to understand. 

No means “no” which is also short for “Do not do that which you are either doing or considering doing! Do not do it now. Do not do it in the future. Forget about ever doing it.” 

Toddlers learn rather quickly that all disagreements regarding free will and intent can be truncated into a binary system of “yes” or “no”, winner takes all. “Yes” takes too much time and an appreciation of carefully curated nuanced persuasion to undertake for anyone that has not yet underwent puberty. “No” is the easier ground to defend. Even a toddler can do it. 

No means “no” which is short for “I will not be doing that which are are requesting me to do. I will not do it now. I will not do it in the future. Forget about me ever doing it.”

The great thing about this binary system is that provides the illusory appearance of even odds to the toddler for there are only two choices presented. To the toddler mind the odds must be 50:50 that either outcome could occur. The answer is this or it is that. It is yes or it is no. It is or it is not. It is so clear. Victory is within grasp.

That the odds of victory are not actually 50:50 is no deterrent. The odds are always stacked towards alleged authority. Toddlers have almost zero. But the odds are not zero. There is a chance at victory. 

Even with unappealing odds, holding the misbelief that there is a 50:50 shot at victory is actually beneficial to the toddler. Having limited experience in a world where adults employ more complex strategies that require more time to learn, toddlers have only this single strategy to deploy. As such they are willing to go all in. What other option do they have with such limited options at their disposal? Their conviction that victory is right there to grasp due to their misbelief in these even odds emboldens them. Add in the some wildcards like youthful argumentative stamina and infantile belligerent insistence and the odds for the toddler gradually increase.

My temperament was such that at that age that I would have certainly had the confidence to utilize refutational listening as a strategy for victory were my free will and ferocious independence in question. Nothing ventured nothing gained. If I was enjoying myself playing in dirt with toy trucks, I may consider it imperative to assert that I intended to remain outside should a demand be made of me to do otherwise. Why stop a good time? Is it not enough that pleasure alone suffice for me to retain my sovereignty if I am having a good time? Why on earth would I willingly stop doing so? Who has the right choose to end my fun? Why would I submit obediently to the forfeiture of fun for no valid reason? On whose accord? On who’s asserted authority? Why must we simply follow orders blindly just because some alleged authority demands we do as such? Are we not autonomous? Are we simply automatons?

To communicate in an accordingly refutational manner I needed only to understand enough of the conversation to warrant that I respond with a grand declaration:

Parent: “Returneth to the house sayeth thine parenth!”

Child: ”Nay, I shant returneth into thine house! I intendeth to remaineth herewith henceforth, with my hands deepeth in the soil. I farmereth now! Leteth me be! Leteth me farm!” 

Or more succinctly, I would have simply said “No.”

The argument, in my mind would require nothing more than an assertively presented clear declaration of intent: I intended to remain outside per my desire to do such. Certainly victory was nigh.

In the brain of the young child if something is simply imagined it is more than half way towards becoming reality. If a child believes that a declaration of “no” is the wining strategy that will permit them to have their way, they will see it as fait accompli once the word is uttered. A child in such a state will believe that every single need is on the precipice of being entirely fulfilled. A young child will become intoxicated and giddy at the possibility and will physically quake with the excitement that all desires are nearly in hand. They may shower themselves with real tears as their emotions overwhelm them. With victory so near, why bother with needless the comprehension of pesky hard won facts when the odds for games involving such would only favor adults and their lame-o ways?

Regardless, on this particular day in which I first listened to music for comprehensive purposes, there was no apparent reason to engage in the practice of refutation. I simply have a vague recollection that my mom told me that I was to “Lay down on the floor, and be quiet. For a while.”

“For a while.” A vague term that denoted an undefined amount of time that favored the parent and not the child. To be sure it was suspicious, but not quite at the level of objectionable. I suspect that I felt I was being reasonable. I also had learned that I could not say “no” all the time as doing such seemed to further sabotage having my desires fulfilled. Saying “no” had to be reserved for only those times when I clearly had something I really really really wanted to to do.  I couldn’t squander the strategy on just any old desire. I could not simply be contrarian for the sake of being such. 

The request to lie on the floor seemed a better option than the other option rolling around in my head at the time. That option was for me to increase my personal discomfort from the heat by running around as lunatic. I remember wanting to feel cooler on that hot day. The heat was bothersome. Maybe I also wanted to believe that the very slightly cooler air in front of the cool air evaporative humidifier would magically overtake my entire body and cause me to feel not quite so damn hot! I was receptive to the request so long as I didn’t have to be forced to do the humanly impossible; as long as I was not asked to fall asleep during the day I would relent to the request to lie down on the floor for a while.

And though I was doubtlessly well versed in passive listening and could have just lay about the floor feeling and watching water droplets dance onto my skin; the element of pleasurable audio in the form of song enticed me into a desire to engage in comprehensive listening on that hot summer day when I was between age 3 and 4.

“Lay down on the floor and be quiet. For a while.”

I say this, but I cannot recall the actual words she used. They are a rough approximation. An approximation of what? A memory of a moment in time. All I have is the remnant, decaying, facsimiles that my nerve cells encoded to the organic hard drive that is my human brain. My memories. My long term memories. The deepest of the archives.

I was in the living room. I do know my mom drew the curtains closed, so as to make it appear darker.  I seem to recall her saying something along the lines that it would “make the room cooler”. With the hindsight of my own parental experience, perhaps this was meant to encourage the possibility that I would nod off into a deep sleep.

The memory, compressed in a lossy manner and rendered into a lower resolution, is also in the shorthand of a preschooler where the images and the emotions recorded include imbued feelings that lay beyond verbal description. It tends to use a more primitive vernacular than other memories. Despite this, relative to most memories, this one is at a higher organic bit rate. It has a certain clarity the more forgotten ones lack. It is of such a relatively outstanding quality that it is a memory that is revisited with surpassing frequency relative to a lifetime of other memories. But it also has elements that are not describable using words.

I believe that the timing of the request was associated with my sister taking a nap at that time. I have no explanation for this belief other than my memory suggests that there is information in my organic archives that supports the notion that a napping sister was either mentioned or inferred; perhaps tied to a justification for requesting my silence. Who knows? This could all be bullshit for all I know. A convenient description of something that never was and simply conveys a romanticized aromatic narrative ambience.

Whenever a memory of that occurred in that house revisits me, the first thing my brain does is attempt to rapidly recreate the house in its entirety. I will even recreate the rooms that are not present in the story.  This memory does not occur in the bathroom, yet I immediately see the layout of the bathroom; its tiles, the colors of the bathtub and so forth.  I do not have other memories that are so closely tied to a house. In most other memories of houses, the house is of lesser consequence unless it was a memory specific to a house in question. And even then I will only envision the room that are topical to the memory at hand. Stories often occur in houses. One does not generally insist that a story halt its progress through its narrative until we have in our frame of mind an entire descriptive understanding of the house in which the story occurs. Generally we fill in what is germane and necessary and hope that suffices when we recollect the memory at a later point in time. 

Our hope is we always capture and retain enough of an experience to recreate it in all its glory or gory reality at a later point in time. We rarely succeed in capturing everything, but hopefully we captured enough to be confident it is more or less an accurate depiction of what actually occurred.  

My memories from that period of my life seemed to emphasize a need to reconstruct the space that surrounded them. We only lived in the house for less than five years. I think maybe 4 or perhaps 3 based on the various history available to me. Half of those I was less than sentient in that I have no recollection of much of anything. Just little blips and blops of moments of semi awareness. The rest is vaguely memorable. But all have a focus on the house as the primary anchor point for the remainder of the memory. Sometimes the memory takes place in the yard and I will nonetheless rapidly reconstruct the house each time the memory floats by.

Perhaps my brain found that tagging memories with spatial features enabled quick recall that was deemed important and necessary for me as I oriented myself into this world during my organic boot up? Walking was a new capability and I often walked about during this time period. How could I walk about without something to orient and navigate towards? Perhaps such needs equated to every memory being tagged with location first? I will walk to my room. I will walk to and enter that closet. I will walk to the kitchen and look for water. I will walk to my bedroom and get into my bed. Eventually my memories relented on constantly geo tagging everything. Perhaps over the years it became less useful to note all of this spatial detail, less fashionable, and more situational?

I also vaguely recall thinking about that word I kept hearing, "sister”, and not really knowing what people meant when they used this word. It was a concept I did not yet understand. It was used in such a way that it conferred some form of honorific. It seemed to be a really big deal to many people. People would frequently ask me questions using this word. "How do you like having a sister? Do you love your sister? Are you happy to have a new sister?" 

The adult translation of the preschooler age equivalent thought that ran through my mind when people asked something along these lines was "What are you talking about?"; though it probably was mostly said by staring with a blank face at and a quizzical look.

On that summer day I had evolved my understanding only to the point that somehow this new person called "sister" was somehow somewhat similar to me, but not really, and that her status in my life was a bit like mommy and daddy, but not really. She was kind of a me that was not me but someone else who was similar to me with respect to mommy and daddy. It confused me. Her hair was longer and she didn't wear my boy clothes.

But what was I supposed to do with that knowledge anyways? Title or no, who this person really was to me remained mostly unclear. What does one do with such a person in one's life? She barely registered as a human to me. She was closer in size to our cats. Her behavior and sounds more closely resembled those of cats. But she was mostly hairless and cats could walk. They could also be by themselves. And defend themselves. Mean kitty! No no!

The humidifier was brown and beige. So recollects my memory. It was entirely plastic. It sounded more or less like a fan, but air droplets exited it from a slot on the top of the device. 

I don't think my mom outright said I needed to nap, but I contemplated if she had and that if perhaps she did so it would warrant some form of refutational response. She likely did not say the word nap. She likely knew full well that if she mentioned the word nap, it would further imperil her own desire to rest and recover. I would likely resort to anti-napping, a disastrous condition for a parent. A condition in which the child runs around the bend of being moderately slow and compliant and enters the backstretch of borderline criminality in which a child behaves as though possessed temporarily by demons.

Under such circumstances said child will run amok and hurl nonsensical tongues at those who challenge its authority. They will make faces and behave like an unidentifiable beast. They will lack the ability to reason and be unable to follow simple instruction. They will begin to excel in primitiveness and wild primal behaviors. Other animals will flee the room for safety and you, the parent will look desperately for solutions that do not exist.

As a child I was no different. Despite knowing no arithmetic, I figuratively would have determined 2+2=4 were I certain the word "nap" had been uttered in reference to my personhood. I believe I would have done the preschooler equivalent of making it clear that I had seen through such trickery; I would have likely made it certain I would remain unquestionably fully and loudly awake for the foreseeable future. Maybe forever. I would have demonstrated this through feats of physicality and verbal declarations that I was not only alive and well, but also totally wide awake! I would return to my natural primitive nature like others of my kind do under such circumstances.

My recollection was an instruction of subtle guidance, “Lay down on the floor and be quiet. For a while.”; not a firm instruction such as "Go to sleep, little bastard, if you know what's good for you!"  

Perhaps she thought “I will place him in the coolest part of the room, I will darken that room and he will unknowingly be lulled into sleep.”

It is understandable to want such desires fulfilled as a parent. You find yourself surviving a hot and sweaty day and it is tiring watching kids day after day after day forever. Once in a while, one wants one's kid to let them be. Just for a bit. A little bit. It doesn't mean you want to give your kids away. Or that you have decided to engage in a lifetime practice of child neglect. 

You simply wish for a moment away from everything so as to pretend you are  a person with free will. Just for a moment. You forget who you are when you are tasked with the same job forever for every hour of the day. Who am I, you may ask yourself? What was I before I became this worked that was tasked with child rearing duties above all else? Before I was a Chief Diaper Changer? Food Producer? Clothier? A hazmat worker for toxic biological human fluids and waste? You are whatever is requested of you. These were never ambitions of mine, yet here I am. I get paid no wage. 

All parents have done the equivalent to leaving our child in front of a cool air evaporative humidifier. And all parents have justified our behaviors as good parenting. As humans continue to devolve, we have created craftier tools that have increased the frequency of such behavior. The modern version of "Place child in front of cool air evaporative humidifier and tell them to be quiet for a while" is "hand child a hand held device that displays video and tell them to stare at it for a while". It is a more communal activity, paradoxically, in that the parent will also engage in the same activity in the same room, often on the same furniture. Our species, regressing into collective infancy all as one. Together.

We would all do just as my mom did, and place our child in front of the cool air evaporative humidifier and tell them to lay down. And then quietly pray they go to sleep. For a while. If you say you would not ever do this you are likely a lier that does some really nasty things to your children. It is disingenuous to suggest that parents don't try to survive working every moment of every day forever. It is a hard job. You are entirely unpaid.

I chose to lay very near the front of the cool air evaporative humidifier so as to permit myself to wave my hands directly in front of it. Doing this permitted me feel and see the water droplets collect upon them. Sometimes I would do so with my face, which felt good, but then I couldn't see the water droplets form. It pleased me to see and feel them. Observation using multiple senses gave me satisfaction, as though I had made a monumental discovery. A leap of sorts. What can I say? I enjoyed seeing and feeling the droplets on my hand and I thought it was neat. I was 3 to 4; I was only a miniature philosopher at the time. We all must start somewhere. 

The damp air coming from the humidifier had a vague, undefinable, and paradoxically memorable and distinct scent. It was an approximation of human created petrichor. If you ever encountered it and can recall it, you know exactly what I mean.  

If you haven't experienced it, don't bother seeking it out. You will not find that scent. Not in this era. It exists only in the past. The smell is specific to only those cool air evaporative humidifiers and primitive evaporative air coolers that were manufactured during that era. You can no longer smell this particular scent given the inevitable changes that occur over time. That scent, glorious and memorable though it was, is now extinct. It exists only in the organic memories people such as myself.

Along with its extinction are many other fine scents from those years. I particularly miss the smell of thick lubricating grease mixed with a fine dust; it was common on farm machinery during that same time period. Automotive oil on dirt was also interesting. The signs of arid rural decay comes through my memory. Back then people poured oil on dirt because "why not?" had not been a consideration until people better understood that oil harmed soil, and dead soil was bad for pretty much everything you would want do on soil except pouring more oil onto it. People do all sorts of stupid stuff.

Christmas decorations had a different scent back then, for what it's worth.

I do know my mom placed a record on the record player and after telling me to “Lay down on the floor and be quiet. For a while.” And then she left the darkened room. Probably to lie down and rest. This is conjecture. I only know she left the room and went to her room. 

I can't say that I recall all of the songs I heard that day. I imagine the first couple passed me by, and maybe they were too over my head for me to conceptually understand. Also, I was focused on those fantastic water droplets streaming out of the humidifier. But eventually a certain word seemed to capture my attention and instead of hearing the music passively in the background I started to comprehensively listen to what the words were in the songs I was hearing.

I remember clearly listening to what I would later learn are the songs "Where Did Our Love Go?" and "Baby Love", both recorded by Diana Ross & the Supremes. 

The beauty of these songs are found it their clarity and simplicity. They are recorded in a style that is more of those times than other times. They are easy to listen to from an aesthetically perspective. The words are sung with care and attention to phrasing. The chosen words are concise. Each verse direct. The vocals are engaging.  The accompanying music is critical but secondary to the vocals. The accompanying music is wonderful. Overall, the song is relatable in some undefined manner even if one had a limited understanding of the definitions of the words in the songs; even to a boy preschooler lying on the living room floor in a rural area. 

The songs heavily relied on the word "baby". It was a topical word in my life. I heard it often enough that it would have stuck out. I heard it a lot lately in reference to my sister. While I don't recall any obsessive fixation on either the word baby or my sister at the time. I am sure my ears would have naturally rung with its awareness whenever it was uttered even if though it didn't pertain directly to me; and it rung in a way that a word such as “employment" wouldn’t have at the time. 

“Baby” was ever an ever present word and I roughly inferred- incorrectly via the brilliance of my preschooler supermind- that the songs I was hearing were in reference to her. The first song even started with "Baby. Baby." And then the next verse also started with “baby".

She had me at "baby".

Ah, the plot thickens. Mommy has me listening to these songs about baby who is my sister. This could be informative; critical to deciphering the mysteries of my sister. 

I should be quiet and listen. I will listen with my full attention.

And so I did.

Of course, in listening to how that word, “baby”, was used alongside the other words in the song painted an odd picture of my sister.  It was a rather poor picture. 

Sure there was lots of love being discussed in these songs. Lots and lots of talk about love. 

But all of this love was entirely one sided. Only one person was doing the loving. 

The other person was baby. 

And baby was cruel. 

These songs were composed, performed, sung and produced to evoke an emotional response from the listener.  It is not the instrumentation alone giving you something to tap your foot to that engaged your attention. That is not to say the instrumentation was unnecessary or unimportant. They were the first thing you heard.  But only for a couple of bars; pleasant, but not overly attention grabbing. The first thing you hear that is attention grabbing in these songs is Diana Ross's voice. And she laid it all out for you in simple clear words for you to understand should you care to listen.

My preschool brain concluded: "I understand! Message received. Baby is an awful creature!" Even if you had not known the words, you would understand the message was one of sadness; a reserved and dignified mixture of resignation and desperation and sorrow.

She sings in a futile attempt to demonstrate that the magnitude and gravity one's own love toward another should warrant the other to rise up, and love them back; the other person should do such simply because the love that first person had was so magnificent that this alone should overcome all obstacles that sought to impede or damage it. She sang of an endless impossible knot of sorts where one was declares ones resignation that the love one had towards another was as untenable as it was endless.

I was learning about unrequited love. 

It clearly stung. The primary person singing most of the lines, Diana Ross, made that abundantly clear. She did so without needless drama or by being overly loud or whiny. She was clear, concise and unwaveringly insistent. The case was laid out for all to see. It was convincing. 

Why baby wouldn't listen to such reason was beyond my preschool brain's capacity. There was no explanation that justified it. I sided with the woman singing, not baby. Baby had no defense. Case closed!

Who knew one could love another who would not love them back? I had never considered this before. Now, somewhere between the age of 3 to 4, it rocked my world! Was I for the better of it? Who knows? But I had learned something quite abstracted that I had never before encountered. And thank goodness I wasn't that way!  Loved freely and I loved reciprocally. I was great.

I may not have understood every word being sung, but the words were sung in such a manner that I could follow them and effectively understand some element of that which I had not previously known existed. 

Unfortunately, without proper context I also entirely did not understand the important nuances of love that lay before me in the future and between others that would be surround me throughout life. It was a song about emotions after all, not a life guide or instruction manual.

But at that time, armed with a dangerously rough understanding of unrequited love, my preschool brain did believe, as evidenced by the songs, that baby was no good. 

I only knew one baby. And preschool brain ipso facto, I concluded that my sister seemed just an awful specimen of a human being. A mournfully impossible child. 

The woman singing tells me that this baby is a baby that treats you badly. No matter what you do. And no one knows why. And nothing you or anyone else can do will ever change that. Baby is impossible. Impossible!

While I did not know the voice behind the song was Diana Ross at the time, I knew she carried a certain authority. She sounded like she knew of what she spoke. I had no reason to doubt her. Furthermore, I felt, more or less, that the she was speaking for my mom. She was my mom's defender of sorts. 

My mom, being the most authoritative person I knew about everything; who told me not to put my finger into the electric socket and was right; made her case through this woman singing through the speaker. This seemed likely to my ears at that moment in time. Why did it seem likely? Because I was under the age of five. My circle was small and I knew very little.  My brain worked overtime filling in the gaps best it could.

It was amazing to me that this phenomenon that was my new sister, the terrible infant known as "baby", had made such an impression that it was also a song that my mom now played for me to explain how poorly baby treated others.

Baby, baby, hurting my mommy. Doin' her like she does even though my mommy has been totally true to her. Stinging her like bee? I'd been stung by a bee that I had stepped on barefoot earlier that summer. That hurt. It was awful that my sister would do such to mommy. Disgraceful even.

I also remember the cover art. The album’s cover was within my visibility. It made it possible for me to, years later, identify the album by name due to the low res cover art memory I have from that moment in time. The album was Diana Ross and the Supremes Greatest Hits. The main color of the album was an intense dark blue of sorts that wanted to move towards a royal purple. Or maybe a royal purple that wandered into a deep royal blue. In the bottom half was a centered smaller square that contained a drawing of three elegant women in gowns in a hue of pastel green. There were several words in different sizes and colors in the top half, but I didn't know what they were or what they meant. I didn't know how to read between the age of 3 and 4.

From all of this I later derived that I was listing to side A of record 1. It was a two album LP. My limited research suggests this version doesn't appear to exist for direct consumption except from outlets that sell used physical records. It is no longer in production. The songs do appear in several digital formats on other compilations and albums of other sorts, but not in its original format. I could write a couple of thousand words about how I feel about this, but it is not germane to memories surrounding my first comprehensive listening experience.

These songs included amazing harmonies. These harmonies slay even those under the age of five. While Diana’s voice was front and center, it was not alone. I remember noting that there were two other voices accompanying the first voice. 

I miss hearing the harmonies from songs that were captured between the 1950's and 1970s.  Some where along the lines they disappeared. Harmonies from this time period often feel very conversational and heartfelt and intentional. They are often clear and to the point and they attempt to serve the song rather than highlighting vocal prowess. The Supremes, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard on the songs I heard that day, are essential for these songs. Their presence creates a mental image that they have Diana Ross's back as she makes her declarations. They make the songs credible by imbuing them with a sense of gravitas and legitimacy. Not only do they audibly support Diana's conviction, but they also confirm her point of view through their mere collective presence. Don’t doubt Diana. If you are fool enough to do so, understand that you will contend with Mary and Florence as well.  They see what she sees.  They share her feelings on the issues presented. 

Were baby to be cornered by these three women and be forced to listen to what they had to say, baby would surely feel sorely dressed down afterwards.

While the accompanying instrumentation was not center stage, the strength of the vocals drew me into considering what else I was hearing in the song the role those sounds played in what I was hearing. And that reflection generated a  lifelong fondness for musicality. I credit the Holland-Dozier-Holland production team for this.

Holland-Dozier-Holland are the team commonly associated with the Motown sound. Motown was was the portmanteau name of the label for this album. An abbreviated form of the phrase Motor Town, a reference to Detroit, the then capital of automobile production in the world. There is something uniquely identifiable about that sound. Often imitated, never replicated, it is a restrained sound. It lets the music breathe and places the vocals front and center. Everything is audible. Nothing is hidden. What you hear was what was actually played or sung. There are no slights of hand. No machines to fix issues and trick others into hearing virtuosity that is not present. The overall ambience is one that is symphonic and suggestive that these songs belong amongst the cannons of the classical works that we revere.

The drums and percussion are ever present, but there are no drum solos. They keep the beat. It is virtuosic not through demonstration, but through its appropriateness. They provision atmosphere. They are the soundstage for the songs.

And that baritone sax! I find it a masculine tone that provides a male presence in these otherwise feminine songs. Though most often humming along in the background of these songs; the short, tasteful, baritone sax solos Mike Terry plays on these songs were the first solos I knowingly encountered.  The solos are also virtuosic when they appear. Though solos, they are not present to demonstrate technical prowess. They are there to shape the male response in this song. Terry's playing is seemingly a counterpoint to the female perspective. The baritone provides a silent resignation to the lyrics and vocals. It was a remorseful sound; as though the perpetrator, baby, was saying "I know, I know. You're right. I done did you wrong. I can't undo that. There's no defense for my behavior."

I came to this opinion much later of course.  At the age between 3 and 4 I had incorrectly assumed the songs were about my baby sister, not some man who did Diana wrong. At the time of my first exposure to this sound, I just thought "Wow! I have never heard such a sound. I like that sound! I wonder what makes that sound?”

I have no recollection of my mom coming back into the room to change the record to the other side. I'm sure one side was all I would have sat through regardless of however much I may have actually enjoyed the experience. Side A of album 1 is all of thirteen minutes. I think that doing all that laying about on the floor; observing water droplets; analyzing a couple of songs; and drawing life changing conclusions would have felt like an eternity at the age of 3 to 4.

While all of the songs across the two album set are now familiar to me, it also would be entirely specious of me to suggest that my mom played preschooler DJ to ensure a timely continuance onto side B occurred.  I think that had she come back into the room I would have assumed I could get up. And I would have done so. What boy age 3 to 4 wants lay on the floor all day? 

Maybe she did flip the record? If she didn't, it would have meant less than 15 minutes of rest and recovery for my mom as I doubt I would have just sat there doing nothing quietly once the music stopped. I would have considered the activity completed. I think I would have felt it was time to do another activity.  

But perhaps she did play the second side? Maybe one more side was played? Certainly not all four sides of a double album LP. I have hard time envisioning I would have sat through an entire two album set. No way. That would seem largely impossible from what I recollect of my 3 to 4 year out self. But I do not know that answer.  The memory fades out beyond the time boundaries that are the two songs I comprehensively listened to that day. Life moved onwards in an apparently less memorable manner and whatever history occurred immediately afterwards stayed where it was as I left it behind.

But, regardless my future 3 to 4 year old self would feel as though it would never get enough baritone sax and that woman's voice or the sound imbued in Holland-Dozier-Holland productions. Whenever I subsequently heard these songs and others by them on the radio in the future, I was sure to give them my intention. 

Many years later I still do. I am now much older that Diana Ross and the Supremes were when they recorded these songs. Given the changes we incur as our lives progress, the roles of these songs serve different purposes as time moves along. My understanding of them has evolved. How I listen to them is different. What they mean to me varies. But they have stood the test of time and that makes them good songs for me to reference as either memories or learning opportunities.

Oddly, despite my age 3 to 4 year old ears concluding that these song were more or less the "Greatest Hits" of my baby sister being awful to mommy, I didn't take this input as a reason to not like my sister. I don't have any recollection that the songs were a "call to arms" that changed my opinion of my sister to any measurable degree. I seemed to simply feel the songs made it clear that my sister didn't love my mommy and that seemed a bit sad to me at the time. I didn't feel like I needed to step in and do anything about this. And once I got up I certainly didn’t waste any playtime dwelling on these problems. They weren't my problems.

Perhaps I subconsciously felt "well, at least I love mommy and there is that", or "mommy should just not waste her time on baby so much", or "Seems like a good reason to not invest too much time and energy into baby myself". No one really knows what I was thinking.

What was I going to do anyways? I was age 3 to 4.