Aural Rays of Sunshine

"Hey, you got a second?" he asked over the intercom, like a man with a couch that needed moving. Certainly the last question you want to hear your boss ask you at five-thirty in the afternoon.

Sigh. "Sure. I'll be right over."

Like walking that last mile of the way, I marched down the hall, through the lobby, past his receptionist and into his office. His stony face held for a brief moment, but quietly muttered, "Shut the door."

Shut the door? What had I done? Was my 15-minute coffee break running too long? Had I inadvertently absconded with petty cash? He'd been in closed door meetings with one of his superiors for most of the afternoon. Given the choices now before me, moving that couch was sounding like a great option. I could move it right into my therapist's office and spend an eternity on it.

"I want you to hear something," he said quietly. "But before we listen, you must understand that you can't say anything to anyone, and I'm sorry but you can't have this when we're done."

Curiouser and curiouser. Inside, I felt like my heart and my body had separated, and I had no sensation of my limbs being connected to me in any way. Just get it over with and get me the hell out of this room. "Okay. What's up?"

"I've been working on a project." He explained that his boss had asked him to do a personal favor and digitize some recordings. His boss was the son of a famous songwriting team, and these recordings were demos that his parents had made for various artists who went on to make great records of these songs.

In a flash, my heart transformed from a dark pit of dense lead to a brilliant supernova of fusing gasses. "Don't be f---ing kidding me," I blurted with a flood of relief and despair. Despair because I'd been talking to him over the previous several months about the impact that our employer's parents had on my musical life, my endearment to their songs and the legends that these songs helped to create, and here he offers me an opportunity to look through a unique portal into a scared realm. For a record collector to hear demo tapes of musical gold being forged is like a minister being shown the rough draft of Genesis.

"No, really," he said with a wry smile.

I took a slow, deep breath. "What have you got?"

He showed me a file listing that read like the Billboard charts of the mid-twentieth century. Songs that reshaped the boundaries of rock, country and rhythm and blues. Songs that realigned the molecules of the eardrums of anyone who ever heard them so that one could then walk forward in life knowing that he or she knew what harmony was all about, and that the agony of heartbreak explained in sublime lyrics set to such harmonies had more beauty than young motherhood and the sunrise put together.

"So, what do you want to hear?"

Hell if I know. What do you want God to say to you at the pearly gates?

I named a song or two. He clicked a button. Suddenly, he and I were sitting in some living room fifty years earlier with the sound of a big gentle man in a chair next to us, clearing his throat and calling out a title. The small body guitar was melodious and finely tuned. The man and the woman sang plaintively and gently, and each note was like manna from heaven.

In a couple minutes it was over, and we sat in a silence that only the cloistered would recognize. These were about the most beautiful yet fragile recordings I'd ever heard. "Do you realize," I finally uttered, "that other than the two of them, their son, and the artists who went on to make the records, that you and I are probably the only others who have ever heard that? That was..." I stammered, "I--"

"I figured you'd might want to hear these," he smiled. "Want to hear another?"

I coughed, took a deep breath and shifted in my chair. "Well, I guess..." We methodically sifted through others, each one falling down like aural rays of sunshine. The signposts of music history flashed steadily past, but my heart had stopped beating.

"I'm sorry I can't let you have these. I was helping him with this project, but I've got to delete them. He'd fire me if I didn't."

"Achhh! my God!"

"Yeah, well. This is just for his iPod. Nothing else," he replied.

"Ohhhh, man. His iPod? Get out. How can he not see the opportunity he has here? Why doesn't he release these? He'd sell a million copies – to music industry people alone! Can't you reason with him? They're priceless; they've got to be preserved."

He shrugged helplessly. "You've heard enough?"

"Well, let me clear my calendar for the next ten years." I wanted to drown in these songs until my eardrums were waterlogged. But deep down I realized that just the several songs I heard were so precious and how could I really demand more? I sighed and slowly shook my head. "Go ahead."

He reached to the mouse, selected the folder and hit Delete. Such awesome power in such a simple act. But then, those very simple songs themselves had an even greater power. I was grateful these songwriters had shared them with artists who made records we've all enjoyed for decades.