A Yearning For The Past

I was driving home from work yesturday when the i-pod I have plugged into my stereo played Love Gun by Kiss. The first thing that came to my mind was the great album cover of the band. Remember album covers anyone??? The art work inside and out weather drawn or taken pictures was unique to each one. True art in its simplest form. Albums were like movies in those days with release dates I followed closely. Anyone else have friends rush over on there bikes or you rush over on your bike if they got the latest album first?? The excitement of the story about to be told thru music was palatable. Slowly taking the round disc of vinyl out, YES!! the inside liner contains the words to every song! Now we can sing every line of the story we are about to hear. Time to turn on the turntable, set the speed to 33 1/2 rpms, blow the dust off the needle sending a cracle thru the speakers, move the arm over and slowly lower it down, (right on the edge mind you as we dont want to miss and be into the song), the static is playing with everyone waiting on the edge of there seats, smiles from ear to ear, AHHHHH the wonderful sounds begin. We would listen to every note not wanting to miss a single one. And just like a play it came with an intermission. Time to turn the wonderful new black disc over. But wait, we must discuss every song on that first side first. Then we repeat the process with side two. Actual face to face interaction with opinions being shared and debates battled until we turned it back over for the second listen. You didn't punch a button and skip a song. Hell it was almost considered a envyable skill just to be able to drop the needle perfectly on a song in the middle of an album. Still it was not worth the chance of scratching it. Besides we would miss part of the story. Now days there is no story. No interaction. A CD is just a conglomeration of singles. No artwork, no story, no time. Face to face interaction?? No way. Not when we can Facebook with one hand while texting with the other. Hell my kids would Twitter with there toes so they can really be up to date. I really wish I could see a bunch of bikes come screaming up the driveway and land in a pile as they ran in and slammed the bedroom door. Music and laughter would leak out from underneath that door as it did from mine in my youth. I wish. I really do. Instead all I seem to hear is the sound of fingers on a laptop, and the vibrations of a phone. Incoming messages. No bikes in the yard, no music, no laughter, no one else in the room. Technology, separating us all one IM, text, and tweet at a time. Let me know what you think.