Down the Seven Bridges Road

Of all the forms of art, isn't music the one where you develop the closest bond with the artist themselves?  It's been a rough couple of weeks for fans of Classic Rock--with the deaths of Lemmy KIllmister of  Motorhead, David Bowie and then yesterday Glenn Frey of the Eagles.  Our "Greatest Hits" station down the hall can barely keep up with the dedications and musical retrospectives.

Following each of those deaths, songs from those artists shot up the rankings of most popular downloads and plays on services like iTunes and Spotify.  Songs you haven't heard in years suddenly take on renewed meaning and you find yourself saying things like "Man, I forgot how good these guys were" and "I really need to listen to this stuff more often".

When the #RIPGlennFrey started showing up on my Twitter feed yesterday (and it was confirmed by more reputable media outlets than @boogereater69) my first thought was about a moment in college involving an Eagles song.

We were walking across campus in a group one night and one of the girls said "There are a lot of stars in the sky tonight".  My friend Adam and I both had the (some would say annoying) ability to hear a phrase and come up with a song lyric to match it--and then of course, sing it for everyone's "entertainment".  Almost instantly we both started singing the a cappella first line from the Eagles live cover of "Seven Bridges Road"--"There are stars in the southern sky....."  As we started singing the next line--instead of telling us to please shut up--a couple of other guys in the group joined in with more of the vocal parts and pretty soon, we had an Eagles cover band walking across the Library Mall singing in five-part harmony. 

And when we were done, we actually got compliments from people we didn't even know saying it sounded really cool.  That is when we started talking about forming a band--until we realized that only two of us could actually play an instrument--and there wasn't a lot of guitar/trombone bands making it big at that time.

But the fact that the death of Glenn Frey brings back that memory shows how special music is--and the power that those that make that music have in our lives.