“The Turntable”a.k.a. “The Parable of the 33.3”
Good evening out there to all of my friends in radio land. This is a voice calling from the past coming to you from behind the microphone, bringing you all the songs all night long. The ones that have come, the ones that have gone. The ones which remain on your brain and the ones you’ve forgotten, having left far behind. But this evening, before we begin to spin for the very first time, let me segue, into this turn, if you will and if you do not mind, to speak…. on a particular subject most important to me,… A little life lesson revolving around a 33 and a 1/3. When I was a young man, twelve, or maybe thirteen, I made my way to the local record store and bought a copy of Led Zeppelin four,… or "Zoso" as I've heard it called. Hold on a moment…to establish the mood, let me put it on for effect.
Now, although years later I'm still delighted by every moment etched upon this wax, in those early days I was singularly concerned about one track and one task, learning how to play Stairway To Heaven on my guitar, especially Page's solo comprised there within the outro. Many hours had I spent lifting the needle up from that LP and dropping it down an 1/8 of an inch in reverse, closer to the outer edge and then with great haste returning my hands to their proper positions on my guitar hoping to capture another note or two as Jimmy Page and I played on. Looking back now many years later I am sure that the most important contribution this song has made on my life was not actually learning the solo, note for note, but hearing over and over again the lyric where the great Apostle Robert Plant sings;
"Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on"...
Even as a boy with my first few listens, I knew the lyric was bigger than it seemed. I didn’t know about the prodigal son, about the holes in the road, as I eventually would.
For those of you old enough to remember the joy of a 33 1/3 LP, or perhaps in these more recent days, you are one of those individuals hip enough to be back into the same, the way the vinyl smelled when you first tore the plastic off of the outer cardboard sleeve was delightful!
The scent was both natural and manufactured somehow. The suspense you felt in wondering if the inner sleeve might contain lyrics printed upon it, was palatable. There was the slightest hint of crackle and pop when the needle found the outer groove, assuming your needle was in good condition. And, although it may offend some and offer an improved technique to others, I somewhat embarrassingly and truthfully offer this…
I carry with me fond memories of cleaning weed over the seam of a double album, rubbing the buds between my thumb, index and middle fingers, the seeds falling down and rolling off the edge into my lap, onto the floor. Sorry, I do not know who first pioneered such a procedure but it was highly effective none the less.
Ok then... The point of my story. I suppose that those who contemplate God to any suitable depth will eventually find the argument growing within themselves or with others as they may converse, whether or not life is lived out by happenstance or somehow predetermined by the hand of God. The classic argument…..Destiny or freewill? I have spent a good part of my life contemplating this very circumstance and when this argument rises up in my conscience I think back on the 33 1/3 and the first time I saw the album in a different way. It was actually not too long ago this occurred.
As I gazed across this disc I took note of not many grooves, but one long groove carefully carved into the wax. A path, I pondered about the music etched into the walls of the groove. I thought Eureka! It is one long story broken up into many performances.
I then began to consider as I sorted through the many other records I owned, that not a one of these vinyl testimonies were the same length in playback time. And, so I contemplated... do we not all live for different lengths of time as well? For a moment, I wondered how many people, if any, since the beginning of people, might have lived for the exact same length of time, even down to the last second? Here’s the problem with such a consideration, I’m contemplating seconds, whereas Jesus deals with eternity, so therefor He must be able to count in much smaller and infinitely larger pulses of time. There is no way to know and probably so… maybe not. I don’t know.
So, what if then, an album, for the purpose of instruction about life, might represent a life? Imagine traveling down this groove listening to, or better still performing the music the Composer has left for you to follow. When the switch is turned to the "on" position, the needle drops to the outer rim of the wax and this represents our birth. Hmmm? Pretty nice.
Do not the first couple songs usually foreshadow the rest of the album? Classical, smooth jazz, rock... I leave out hundreds of others but you are already considering your genre, are you not? The music is sometimes soft in one song and loud in others... fast, slow, in tune and even out... and if you'll forgive me, dramatic or just plain boring. I absolutely cannot stand the very compressed auto tuned tracks which come about these days.They bore me to tears. It all depends on your tastes.
Sometimes the needle becomes a little worn because of so much playback and so the music doesn't sound as good as it should, or maybe I have carelessly let scratches embed themselves into my wax and as a result I skip out of the path. You know… the scratches… intoxication, lust, vice, greed, envy, PRIDE, resentment, there must be dozens of others, and we can all argue which ones count and which do not, but we are distracted in those moments throughout our lives. Perhaps the listener at this point becomes concerned about what “He” is hearing and sets me down into a cleaner groove and I continue on.
This brings on one more consideration. What He is hearing! Do we not plug speakers into the turntable? Those around us are listening, studying intently. So does He.
(Some will pray. Some will replace the needle altogether) not sure if this line fits
I think the most interesting comparison I might illustrate is this. Sometimes a certain piece of music within the groove is so important that either I, the listener, or He the artist, lifts up the needle arm and sets it back down in that very same spot so that I may hear it once again. I do not know why but are not some moments in our lives either too sweet or too hard to ever really stop listening to? Maybe the song represents an occasion that was overwhelmingly
traumatic or wonderful… or is it entirely too addictive, so that we never can completely turn loose of that particular song or lyric. I’ve got one or two of those. Maybe we all do.
LISTEN TO YOUR LYRIC, BE SURE.
They're always playing, even if at times only a faint murmur in the background, they play on.
The most profound detail to me about this analogy is that when I finally do make my way to that last circle in the center, some record players automatically lift up their arms and stop spinning. Others just spin around and around that final groove, until at last, the owner of the record lifts up the armature, setting it to the side and switches the switch to the "off" position.
This represents our death.
Oh hell, I almost left out one really important detail. I noted that there might be one song or lyric that we could never get beyond. For me, for the longest time it would have been Stairway to Heaven with an occasional detour into Black Dog.
But, it wasn't until years later that I realized the music on the other side, side B, was sweeter to my ears than what I thought was most important on side A.
Misty Mountain Hop, Four Sticks, Going to California……!! When The Levee Breaks…(it’s always about water, isn’t it?)
So, therefore, I am left to consider this truth. Is there not always something beneath the surface in us or a different piece of music playing in that background worth giving a listen to? Is there perhaps some melody we somehow overlooked? I believe there is. Anyhow, I have begun to see God in the spinning of a 33 & 1/3. This is the voice, leaving you to the very fine, track number nine. And a good evening to you…. There is still time to change the road you’re on.
