Well, this is awkward.
It seems that I have your copy of The Who’s “Tommy.”
And I’ve had it for more than 40 years.
I probably grabbed it during one of the times you were away from the house, off doing who knows what. At the time, your records seemed like abandoned objects and I helped myself. Honestly? If I knew then what I know now, I might have grabbed more of them, like those Kinks albums.
I doubt that you have a turntable, so I suppose it doesn’t matter now.
Anyway, I listened to it today and it sounds pretty great. They knew how to press albums back then, and it has that cool Decca Records label with the rainbow stripes. The sleeve is pretty nice, too, except where I wrote my initials on it, because you don’t want someone stealing your records. Even the records you stole.
I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to take it.
But do you believe that physical things can posses energy? If that’s the case, record albums would contain some great power. In the same way that dust gets stuck down in the grooves, maybe these vinyl discs collect our experiences and feelings. And I’m sure that a lot was going on in your head back when you would have listened to “Tommy.” Much of it revolves around troubled families, and you know what things were like sometimes. And your name is Tommy, so there’s that!
Over the years, so many records end up in landfills, and others get passed from hand to hand among strangers. I get a powerful feeling from albums that belonged to someone I care about, like you or Dad. I’m sorry I took it, and it wasn’t right, but today I’m glad I have this little part of you.
By the way, yeah — I also took “Quadrophenia.”
We tossed a lot of albums a long time ago.
Nobody wanted them.
My brother and I were 7 years apart and had different interests
I don’t know, when it comes 60s and 70s album rock, seven years is not much. I always listened to my oldest brother’s stuff and that was a seven year difference.