Swing Music, Metalheads, Time Travel and Uncle Pete

Remember friends as you pass by, as you are now so once was I. As I am now so you must be prepare yourself to follow me...

The Internet informs me that this passage was a common epitaph upon tombstones in the 19th century. I learned it from the lyrics of a Megadeth song called Mary Jane in the late 80’s.

Both the passage and the manner of my exposure to it have marked relevance to what I am about to write about. Time, it’s inherently repetitious nature and a passion for music. These are the building blocks.

When that aforementioned Megadeth song released I was a young man who had discovered a deep love for music at a relatively young age. Many, if not most, of the milestones in my life – my most powerful and relevant memories – carry in them the strands of this passion. With music having been such a relevant and constant aspect of my life there was almost always a song playing in the background when things happened…

The radio was on and a song was playing the first time I laid eyes upon the woman that I instantly fell in love with and eventually won over.

I was listening to music when that same woman walked into the room with an odd and nervous air about her before she handed me a small plastic stick that held a small window in which a small blue plus sign had appeared – informing me that I would soon be a father.

My car stereo was loudly playing the night I entered an intersection on a state highway and another car rammed into my drivers door – causing my car to become airborne, hitting and wrapping itself around a BP sign and ejecting me through the front windshield upon impact.

I could keep going, for hours with examples. The point is that not only was there music involved in these events, and countless others… It’s that I can remember the exact songs and the exact points in those songs that were playing as it all transpired. More, even now, decades upon decades later for many of these events, I can play these same songs and find myself almost transported through time – back to when these things happened.

To me this has always been the magic of music. That it can almost put me back into the shoes I once wore, but with a different perspective.

It’s a bit like time travel I think. This is also fitting because what I’m leading up to here is along those lines. The idea that time is like a wheel and if we live long enough we get to circle back sometimes…


My mother was born the youngest of twelve siblings. Moreover she wasn’t just a bit younger than most of them. She was substantially so. Her nearest sibling was eight years her senior and the next youngest was a full ten years older still. In short my mother was born with nieces and nephews who were her elders and siblings who were more age appropriate to be her parents. This is relevant because it means that when I came along I had a whole slew of aunts and uncles who were more like grandparents to me.

One of these more aged uncles was a man named Pete. Pete had married my mother’s elder sister decades before I was born so there was a massive generation gap between us.

However Pete and I shared something. That passion for music.

With such an expansive family ( my father also had a fairly large number of siblings and he was also the youngest, though not by nearly as large a margin ) it was difficult to keep close with most relatives. There were just too many of them. Dozens of aunts and uncles and more cousins ( and kids of cousins and so on ) than I can honestly even guess at. Because of the sheer numbers of people involved family functions were limited mostly to holidays, weddings and funerals.

Yet every time a grouping occurred Pete and I always managed to find time to talk and nearly every time we talked music wound up being the core topic.

Pete was a wonderful person. Outgoing, funny, personable. The kind of guy who could make you feel like you were important in just a few words… Even if you were the long haired, heavy metal obsessed presumptive black sheep of the family as I was at the time.

Once the topic of music came up he would patiently let me tell him all about what was new and cutting edge – which to me usually meant “fastest, loudest, crunchiest and with the most notes in the shortest possible space”. He would even feign interest enough to ask me to break out my Walkman to let him hear what I was discussing. He’d listen intently to my music for a fair few seconds and would say “Wow. I can see why you like that. Good stuff kid” or something along those lines…

… And then he would add something like “But if you really want something to get under your skin you should let me break out my albums” before listing off a litany of 1930’s and 1940’s big band and jazz musicians.

Uncle Pete was a wonderful, outgoing, funny and personable person who cared enough to make me feel validated. Sadly at that time I wasn’t able to fathom such things and would look at him sideways when he suggested I should rock out to some Benny Goodman.

Pete took my incredulity in stride and never called me on it. Not once.

If you’re wondering why I am writing about a WWII veteran who tried to get a misguided metalhead to listen to swing music in the 1980’s it’s because while he, at that time, wasn’t really old – to my much younger self it didn’t matter if he was sixty or six hundred. I saw him as older than Methuselah and his trying to discuss the 1940’s with me went over about as well as trying to explain life before smartphones to a kid born in 2005 would be now.

Thing is now I’m the old man who isn’t really old but who probably seems ancient to the teens and twenty somethings I now interact with at family gatherings. I’m the one walking up to them and saying “Whatcha listening to” before feigning interest for a bit so that I can then attempt the “Yeah, that’s good stuff. Know what you might like from back in my day???”

A tactic that’s almost universally met with the same side-eyed “Huhwhalulz” reaction that I used to reflexively offer to Pete.

Where I once told Pete “I mean yeah that kind of music is OK I guess but I like guitars and your music is all pianos and horns” now my younger relatives look at me and say “I mean the beat’s OK but I really don’t care for guitars. I prefer electronic instruments.”

It seems time’s wheel has made a full and complete revolution and I have become Pete. I think of the 1980’s the same way that Pete thought of the 1940’s, for the same reasons and in the same ways… And the same way that people who are in their youthful prime right now will think of the 2020’s when they find themselves in the role of the old / not too old man.

It’s a rhythm really. A subtle drumbeat underneath the cacophony of life. No matter how free form or erratic it may become - it always seems to return to the familiar bridge or chorus when needed and as with a real sing along new voices join into those familiar moments as they learn the words and refrains and older voices, who’ve been singing a bit longer fall away.

The important thing is that the song never stops.

As I am now so must you be...

I expect that Pete is looking down at me with a grin thinking “Now you finally get it kid.”

I think in his honor I’ll close this and go listen to some Benny Goodman.

Thanks for reading.

a reply to: Hefficide

Thanks for reading.

Thanks for posting .

a reply to: Hefficide

I first started to really love music in the mid-late 80s, so I'm guessing I'm probably a little younger than you but not by much. I'm also thinking our musical tastes were probably close to the same back then.

I don't have very many specific memories of what song was playing at the exact moment something happened. What I have more of are specific emotions that are always attached to certain songs and/or albums. It's actually something I find very intriguing and often think about.

It's kinda strange though, because I don't always know exactly what those emotions actually are. I remember the time period and where I lived at that time, and also often where I was at the exact time for that specific feeling, but still not real sure what it is.

Even though it's something I've often thought about, it's hard to explain, and I know it's likely that what I'm saying won't make a whole lot of sense.

More often than not it is a sad or depressing feeling, yet even though I didn't like the feeling at the time, and I didn't like whatever it was that initially caused the feeling, I still love the memory that I have of it now. I guess it is because of that 'time travel' factor. Wherein even though I didn't like it, I love that I am still able to re-visit it. Maybe it's because my mind prefers living in the past instead of the present.




Something else I've noticed, is that the older I get, the more I like older music. I like more 60s-70s music now, than I did during the 80s-90s...

During early childhood, anytime we were on a road trip, my parents were constantly listening to 50s music, the 'Oldies but Goodies' radio stations. I hated that crap with a passion.

Then throughout the 90s, most of the time when I would first listen to something from the 60s or 70s, it would just immediately sound like 'oldies' music, and I hated it.

One example would be Ziggy Stardust. When I got that on cd, I wanted to like it, but most of it just sounded too much like oldies, which was highly disappointing at the time. It took awhile before I was able to appreciate that album as a whole. I love it now, and it doesn't sound like 'oldies' at all. That's just one example, but as time goes on I've had the same experience with other 60s-70s music.

What really amazes me is the beat. I find it totally impossible to keep still when you stand an listen to a drum/ percussion troupe. Maybe it's a direct collective memory from cave man days. Just drums, all types in a group, I would defy anybody to stand still.

My mom moved from her family in Illinois, to Los Angeles, where she met My dad. All his family were there. Together, my folks moved to northern California. There were zero aunts, uncles, cousins, and grand parents anywhere near. We did occasionally fly to Illinois, or drive down south. My dads favorite uncle, was also my favorite uncle. He was really tall. He and I used to talk about music, and instruments. He used to play records for me. It wasnt really my type of music . He gave me a vintage German stereo/speakers ( Metz) in the 60s.