This is what 2020 sounds like

I knew a lawyer who used to talk with me about music, literature and related matters whenever we saw each other. In one of our last conversations before he died suddenly a few years ago, he told me that he was getting into Van Morrison's Astral Weeks album for the first time even though it was released in 1968, when he was in his late teens. He said Astral Weeks sounded exactly what 1968 felt like. I told him I was surprised to hear that. Astral Weeks is a laid-back, jazzy album with a spiritual side. It was not the Van Morrison that most people have come to associate with that artist, i.e., Brown Eyed Girl and Moondance. I reminded my friend that 1968 was a violent year: riots, the Vietnam War, assassinations, etc. My friend was politically-minded, so I thought he might agree with me. He did not. He insisted that Astral Weeks captured what 1968 felt like.


What does 2020 feel like? It's a very discordant year, and we are all watching it unravel. In the past, I would read about pandemics in passing. It was always a threat lurking in the background, but the newspaper and public officials did not dwell on the topic for long. I did not know anything about pandemics except that they involve a virus that is spread easily. We all know about pandemics now.


In 2019, I was reading some commentary on a music discussion board about a musician, Mark Hollis, who died at the early age of 64. Hollis was the bandleader for Talk Talk, a band I had heard of but knew nothing about. They had a hit in the early 1980s "It's My Life" that sounded like a sophisticated Duran Duran. After that, nothing, at least not for me. I did not know until Hollis's death that Talk Talk went on to release an album in 1988 that many music fans worship as a moody, meditative, and emotional record, the crown jewel of Talk Talk's recording career. I gave it a listen and read some reviews of the album. The album apparently was the start of something called "post rock," which for the 1980s meant it was no longer the usual loud-drums-and-power-ballads that we'd grown accustomed to 35 years ago. I hear some Pink Floyd in this album, and now I know where Radiohead must have gotten some of its ideas. The highlight for me is I Believe in You, the penultimate track. It moves slowly, but the melody is there, and the bass line picks up midway through the track, giving the song a special intensity.


One fan review of this album said this is the sound of the Earth crying. I agree. Little did that reviewer know the Earth would be crying in 2020. You may not make it all the way through this album; it takes some getting used to. If you give it a few listens, it may grow on you. It grew on me last year. I did not know it would foreshadow this year.