Simon and Garfunkel "Cloudy" (1966)
Cloudy
I'm pretty sure I was the one who talked my mother into joining the Columbia Record Club. She would do things like that for me when I was in junior high and high school. I'd already built up a sizeable library of books as a member of three Doubleday Book Clubs--the Dollar Book Club, the Mystery Book Club, and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club. After the introductory offers and the book each month for a few years, I had such a library that I had to convince my mother to buy a second book shelf for my bedroom. She bought it. She was good to all of her kids like that.
By seventh grade I had already began to purchase favorite hit singles on 45 RPM records. Even before that I regularly enjoyed listening to the LP records that my parents owned, but after I started getting more interested in the music that kids my age were mostly listening to I turned my attention toward record albums.
Albums weren't inexpensive as far as my financial resources back then allowed. I talked my mother into buying a few here and there or if I had some extra money I might spend it on a coveted album. But after I finagled my mom into joining the record club the albums came more freely.
She let me choose the albums for the introductory deal so I made sure I had a fair mix of music she liked as well as some albums that intrigued me. Later on we'd get the featured albums that the club automatically sent. They tended to be the top pop hits of the day so I got plenty of music that interested me.
One of my favorite albums that came from the club was Simon and Garfunkel's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. I was already a fan of the duo from their debut hit "The Sound of Silence". I had bought that 45 and played it until I knew every nuance of the song. They had a gentle airy sound with lyrics that could be in a book of poetry.
The Simon and Garfunkel album that I got from the record club was no disappointment to me. It was played repeatedly with me hanging onto every word of the songs. Even now a gentle song like "Cloudy" might play wistfully in the back of my mind as I recall holding the album in my hands looking at the cover. High school. It was a time when music comforted me and encouraged me. There has rarely been a time in my life when music didn't do that.
Did you belong to any record or book clubs when you were younger? Do you belong to any now? What music comforted you the most when you were in high school?
