I’m ten years old and crawling into the front seat of our then not-quite-so-beaten-up Camry, stomach when my mom pushes a CD into the dusty slot nestled below the not so bright display showing the time, viagra the temperature. We’re greeted by a choir of harmonicas, rx rhythmic drums, syncopated guitar strumming, all accompanied by a lightly accented voice that felt warm and full. The song progressed with the kind of liquidity a great story has, complete with talking breaks and references to a writer I would later grow to hold just as close to my heart as the album. It faded, and a familiar voice sprung forward with the twangy, metallic guitar.
Left forgotten for years, my hands found the thick nautical cover tucked beneath blankets in the trunk of the car that would soon be handed down to me. Thank god I found it, I thought as I sprinted back inside to show my mother I hadn’t lost her album after all. “Check again,” she’d repeated frantically when I’d told her I had no idea where it was. “You’re replacing it if you can’t find it.” I shrugged, unable to understand why she was so concerned about a silly CD. (Okay, it was the deluxe 3-CD edition. But that’s not my point.)
But it didn’t take long to understand. Now, Mermaid Avenue is an album that feels like home to me, and its residence is the still working CD player in my tired old car. It reminds me of long summer nights spent driving around in my pocket-sized town, challenging myself to get lost. It fills the cracks in my bones, in my heart left by occupants of the passenger seat who never belonged there in the first place. It transports me to beaches I’ve never set foot on, sinking my feet deeper into the sand with every echoing harmonica note. It is my companion when I drive alone, telling me stories about lovers lost at sea, or celebrity crushes.
My foray into music was only in its seedling stage when I made my initial discovery of the album, and so I took this new prize as an opportunity to delve deeper. Some research brought me to find that the songs on this album were penned by Woody Guthrie. This struck deeply with my newly politically conscious self. All this took place when the Occupy movement was in full swing, people actually paying attention to the grungy hipsters waving signs in front of their poorly constructed, equally grungy tents. I was starved for justice- and, from Mermaid Avenue, I found my footholds in the raspy voices of Guthrie and Dylan.
Mermaid Avenue became a sonorous scrapbook for me, detailing events of my adolescence I’d never before been able to get down in my own words. Billy Bragg’s warm, wholesome voice and Jeff Tweedy’s faraway, sad voice intertwined almost perfectly, leaving open spaces for the lovely Natalie Merchant to fill. “At My Window Sad And Lonely” carried the heartbreak of the chilly October night my first serious boyfriend had broken up with me. “Christ For President” carried the heavy anger that welled up in me as I grew aware of the war crimes our very own president was committing. “Hesitating Beauty” turned my cheeks rosy, reminding me that even though I hadn’t yet, I’d find him someday.
It was something I could share with my mother. While my dad initially implanted this thirst for sound, for filling my ears with the particular noises a certain specifically shaped wooden box would make when you touched the thin strings hanging over it, my mother did her part in pressing the radio on in the car. Green Day’s “American Idiot” blared over our impressive speakers, prompting me to snatch the album from her collection so I could replicate its angry declarations over and over again through a bruised portable CD player that never left my side. She’d leave certain stations singing to us, leaving me leaning in expectantly for the back ID that rarely came, tugging on her shirt and asking, “Who was that one by?”
And so Mermaid Avenue became one of the many albums I borrowed from her, and it certainly proved the most impactful. The album itself is impeccably structured. It’s an album I can listen to from front to back- all three parts (although the first is admittedly my favorite)- without even once having an urge to skip. I’ve internalized the lyrics and turned them into stories of my own. It’s an album linked to my coming of age, placing specific memories hanging onto their own five lines. Mermaid Avenue is my memory lane.
