Shared cultural memories.

I enjoy reading comments people have about their particular participation in shared cultural memories, especially if I too am in the memory cohort.

This one struck me both because of the appreciation for Paul Simon — I continue to think we don’t have people like that in the pop culture anymore and I regret it — and the specific idea of the moment of epiphany from hi-fi. I didn’t have that notion in mind but instantly knew what it was. We were so into the minutia of stereo systems 😀 Someplace I still have my Advent speakers, purchased with slowly-earned side-job money and tons of careful shopping, listening, obsessing in audio stores.

Comment:

“I’ll always have a very special association with this song. In about 1973 there was a store in Berkeley called Pacific Stereo. As a thirteen-year-old, I would go down there and drool at of of the wonderful electronic goodies. One day a salesman popped Kodachrome into a really nice system, and cranked it. It was as if I saw God for the first time. I had never known music with this high of fidelity and crispness. It felt like Paul Simon was there playing in the same room with me. Hearing this song always brings that moment right back to me. Even 48 years later.What brought me here today is an interview with the guy who was the drummer on this track, and he tells the story of working at the Muscle Shoals studio and what they had to do to get this exact sound of the drummer. It just gives me a whole new appreciation of this song and the musicians behind it.”