In his song Now I’m Learning to Love the War, Father John Misty requests listeners “Try not to think so much about, The truly staggering amount, Of oil that it takes to make a record, All the shipping, the vinyl, The cellophane lining, the high gloss, The tape and the gear.” The song gets a little darker from there. That came out in 2012, if I recall (and in keeping this as analog as possible – with the exception of the computer on which I’m typing – I’m relying on memory) – and in those good ole days the Father and many of the rest of us were blissfully unaware of just how much we’d become aware of all that oil and all that it takes to make things, and just how much war we’d be expected to learn to love.
The oil that it takes to make a record you find in a bargain crate was pumped out long ago, maybe before you were born. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to think about the great costs of treasure and blood it incurred at the time of its manufacture. Based on the amount of early-70’s “This Ain’t No Disco”- featured albums, it likely was pumped out when oil was priced at an all-time high, (for then) due then in part to wars and sanctions and all manner of geopolitics and corporate intrigue. Same as it ever was. But that cost is sunk. Your modern purchase contributes to your enjoyment, and to the continued existence of your local record store. (That’s in no way implying you shouldn’t buy new vinyl, or feel guilty about it.) The $10 and under used record you get today in your local record store is also weirdly distanced from current inflation – an album that was $2.50 in 1975 may be the same or less today, and the material of which it’s composed is wholly divorced from that material’s current cost. It’s also music that you can be sure isn’t AI, or sent to you via algorithm – honest, human creations in no way connected to data centers or oligarchs (well, at least living oligarchs – like the oil it took to make them, those problematic guys at record companies of yore have already spent their energy and your purchase today won’t make any difference in their bank accounts).
You can be assured that an album – it’s human created sounds, and artwork, and liner notes – you buy for less than most coffees or beers (this is in no way discouraging anyway from spending on many of our fine Peninsula’s/s’ coffees and beers) was placed there for you without prior knowledge of your listening habits, unless the record store owner/employee who put it there let you know it was there and that you might like it, based on them knowing you. And you can talk to that person, and they’re likely pretty cool.
The mid-70s: so much disco, so much This Ain’t No Disco, problems with petroleum products and corrupt politicians and Middle East wars, and anticipations for a big and significant birthday party that America would throw for itself. Same as it ever was. But maybe – maybe – even with all the forced non-human tethers with which we’re constrained, there are more ways to separate oneself from the most disagreeable aspects of modernity during America’s semiquencentenial than there were during its bicentennial.
This column’s title is taken from the Talking Heads’ song “Life during Wartime.” Whenever you end up reading this, it’s still probably wartime. With all due respect, Father, you don’t have to learn to love it. During this July of our Nation’s 250th birthday (or whenever you’re reading this), feel free to instead immerse yourself in some of the great Stuff That’s Happening in Your Town, and experience relative peace and quiet (except for the music being played), low inflation, petroleum products without the guilt, totally AI-free art, and tactile browsing with your local record store’s bargain crate or bargain-priced albums.
The album that inspired these ruminations was found at Port Orchard’s Vinyl Injection, and features on the cover a naked guy that kinda looks like Flea in the process of activating one of those plunger deals that makes the dynamite go boom in cartoons. Try to think about the staggering amount of dogs, people, wildlife, and whatever else is impacted when people make things go boom, and pick up next month’s Smokestack to read about that album, which due to the whole “500 words or so” descriptor I just didn’t get to this month. // J. OVERTON
