"And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very lute that was hallowed with knives?"
--Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet"
Mother blazes down an Iowa highway, the speakers of her teal '86 Cavalier blaring the Rolling Stones' No Satisfaction at the highest possible level. My twin sister and I lock eyes in the backseat, our six-year-old souls devouring Keith Richards' hellacious guitar licks and Mick Jagger's poignant declarations of discontent. Windows down, black hair blowing, Steph's eyes flicker like two red flames revealing something imperative and wind-swept about the human experience. They bare the flames of raw carnal knowledge, that pure and consuming passion a person stumbles into once or twice a lifetime – if they're lucky. Something like the first glimpse of a woman's breast, the first sip of whiskey, the first toke of reefer, or skipping school on a May afternoon. Prior to this day, Steph and I lived securely in the shackles of our grandmother's fundamental Christian clutches, which meant, among other things: no rock and roll. This particular car ride symbolized the conjectural crossroad of our sugar-free existence– two polished children of Christ lured towards life's grimier delights. I clench my teeth, snarl my brow, and do the one thing every rocker feels compelled to do when any other expression fails to meet the moment. I raised my middle finger and resolutely held it out the window– at the highest possible level.
With her gray hair and frostier demeanor, Grandma appeared flushed from the bowels of a Dickens' novel. She didn't rock; she listened to Paul Harvey on AM radio. Grandma took Steph and me in at age four, when a family member neglected and abused us on a reservation in Kansas. Grandma rarely allowed us to watch TV, preparing our hearts and minds for the glorious day of the Savior's return. She was strict but fair, firm in her principles, loving and kind. Grandma did not listen to the Rolling Stones; she sang hymnals every Sunday at church. She was not the kind of woman to roll her windows down. Mom did both. Mom bought peanut M&M's and endorsed eating them in the backseat. She was prone to random fits of dancing – her hands and hips undulating like a calypso Pinocchio. She sang the Beach Boys and Herman's Hermits. She did not sing Pink Floyd. The afternoon of the car ride, authorities had hospitalized my grandmother for complications due to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder– like Mick, Grandma grappled with finding satisfaction. My mom, widowed and single, reclaimed my sister and me. I missed my grandma instantly, her security and simple kindness, but my mother's rock and roll world rang out like a glistening, dissonant chord thrumming atop my grandmother's gray AM radio reality.
When I was 10, my mother cranked Beatles records on Sunday mornings while my siblings and I scrubbed the house. I still associate the Sgt. Pepper's cover art– a choir of famous onlookers adorned by an intricate floral arrangement– with lemon Pledge. A Day in the Life was my favorite song back then, Paul's verse seemed perfectly tailored for Sunday morning mundanity: "Woke up, fell out of bed, ran a comb across my head." I sang this line every time I heard it, dusting the old Britannica's that rested for years, unread, on the small bookshelf in our modest living room. The story goes: a tricky salesperson (very Beatles-esque in my opinion) swindled my mother into purchasing the expensive books at a discount price. Perhaps my mom thought the intricate bindings tied the room together in ways other adornments failed. I loved those books, even though I never read a single entry. I do remember dusting the blood red covers as Lennon nonchalantly sang of a protagonist who "blew his mind out in a car". This reference to suicide still terrifies me, the song underscoring the eerie way reality juxtaposes humdrum routines like waking up, combing your hair, or smoking a cigarette with brutal, chaotic split seconds that change everything. The whole album radiates such dichotomies, harmonious ballads like With a Little Help from My Friends and When I'm Sixty-Four exist alongside tales of suicide and the discordant story of abandonment in She's Leaving Home. It would be a few years, and a couple rock albums later, before I left home.
In 1993, my mother gifted my older brother Lee Nirvana's breakthrough album Nevermind for Christmas. Different from the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, lead singer Kurt Cobain's tormented lyrics of adolescent angst rang throughout my chaotic pre-teen years. I listened to that album over and over in Lee's room. This basement dungeon lacked carpet, so I rested on the concrete floor, boombox speakers inches from my ears. While songs like Lithium, In Bloom, and Smells Like Teen Spirit dominated radio play, I gravitated towards the much punkier Territorial Pissings. The frantic lyrics, "Got a find a way, find a way, when I'm there!" corresponded to the chaos entering my world– my "there" was a home descending into disarray. Mom struggled with the responsibilities of raising five kids alone. Oftentimes, she came home from work exhausted, stressed from a lack of finances and the strain of barely surviving. Money and food were in short supply, but such shortfalls paled in comparison to the desolation I felt when authorities placed Lee and my older brother Jon into juvenile facilities. I looked up to Lee (16) and Jon (13) and their absence culminated in feelings of detachment, resentment, and discontent. My mother's attention turned inward, her affection often absent or elsewhere. Perhaps she felt like a failure, perhaps she was just scared. Almost overnight, I felt invisible and alone.
I sought affection obsessively, finding only brief moments of relevance in school and baseball. At home, my mother and I fought. I felt exposed in my desire to feel significant, and with each perceived rejection, I flew further from the nest. I expected mom to understand my distance, but she was probably as lost as me; like Cobain, we were all trying to "find our way". Ironically, hard rock most soothed me. The heavier the metal the deeper the comfort. I listened to bands like Rage Against the Machine, Marilyn Manson, Pantera, and I loved the Smashing Pumpkins. On school nights, I fell asleep listening to FM rock stations, hearing Korn and Slipknot for the first time. My friends and I discovered marijuana, and I began to drink regularly. At 15, I lived like a 25-year-old alcoholic– blacking out, waking up, drinking, and blacking out again. I sought stimulation through any means, thoughtless of the consequences to my health and life. After skipping school for several weeks and constant fights with my mother, I ran away. I left home and never really went back.
Around this time, I discovered the band Tool. The song Stinkfist entered my world like a musical missile. Few songs have landed this way, off the top of my head the only comparisons are Fleetwood Mac's Dreams, The Beach Boys' God Only Knows, and No Satisfaction. Lead singer Maynard James Keenan's electronically altered voice sounded like a mechanical angel. Although I didn't understand the lyrics back then, Stinkfist criticized my lifestyle, specifically how seeking "constant overstimulation" tends to "numb" the nervous system. My only motivation back then was stimulation. But what brought me pleasure one day lost its potency the next. "Nothing seems to satisfy", sings Maynard just before delivering the song's mic drop truth bomb: "I don't want it, I just need it, to bring the feeling to know I'm alive." Homeless, addicted, spiritually and socially lost, I sought anything to feel alive.
On the cusp of 9/11, I was 17. That year, methamphetamine dominated the Iowa drug culture. Cheap and easy to make, manufacturers littered the rural landscapes with abandoned labs. That summer, Tool released their first album in 5 years, Lateralus. Rock stations played the single Schism at least once an hour, providing the soundtrack to the greatest summer of my life. Around June, my friends and I scored our memorable first $25 worth of meth. The white, powdery substance came in a small piece of paper, folded to create a tight seal. Unsure of what to expect, we smoked the powder from a piece of foil as Schism played on the speakers of my friend's blue Grand AM, at the highest possible level.
Parked discreetly on an old farm road, cornfields surrounded the car from each direction, the fading summer sun casting a panorama of yellows and reds. I drew the smoke deep into my lungs, exhaling an invisible plume that tasted like stale batteries. For the first time in a long time, I felt a sense of total safety radiate throughout my body. Three minutes and thirty seconds into the song, guitarist Adam Jones plays a simple, powerful solo that encapsulates the hyper-euphoric high of meth. Measured and focused, Jones's guitar sounds descended from some ancient power, the wah-wah effect perfectly attuned to life's primordial force. As the song grew, the world dilated: sun, sky, and earth visible in ways I never thought possible. I felt an urge to get out of the car, my heightened awareness desperately seeking a worthy target. I centered this focus on the song. Anyone watching could see my spirit flicker like a red flame revealing something imperative and wind-swept about the human experience. My search for life landed squarely on that summer, that solo, that moment, and methamphetamine. Five years earlier, Maynard had crooned his sacred-profane search "to bring the feeling to know" he was alive. In that moment . . . . . that rare moment a person feels maybe once or twice in a lifetime . . . . . . I felt completely, utterly, perfectly, alive.
And just as quick as I discovered this feeling of “life” in meth, of course it was gone. I spent the next two decades of my life again and repeatedly searching for anything at all to feel alive. Cue soundtrack to near overdose, crime, violence, incarceration, rinse, repeat.
In 2017, inside, I joined the Oakdale Community Choir (OCC). A choral group composed of both incarcerated persons and volunteers from the outside world, the OCC thrived for over a decade at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville, Iowa, a medium security prison. I was at long last learning to find aliveness everywhere within the subtlety of my attention. By now cherishing any opportunity to embrace life on its own terms, I participated in the OCC for over two years. In one of the last concerts before the Iowa Department of Corrections terminated the OCC, the choir performed the Irish folk song, Auld Lang Syne. Over 200 visitors attended the concert; the gym's dim lighting molded the entire body of the audience into one amalgamated shadow. I sat in the back row of the choir with the other tenors. I knew the song, but that day I chose to listen. A choir member sang a stunning solo. Several moments later the altos lifted the vocalist up, harmonizing her part and igniting something deep within me. I can't remember if I cried, but I probably should have. Looking back on that concert now, I can't help but think of my grandma. She might've cried. “We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet…..”
Astonishing music manifests its own poignant experiences, as if fate plucks songs from some mystical ether specifically to accompany our Moments. When I learned of my mother's passing two years ago, I listened to Sgt. Pepper alone in my cell for hours. It held me like no one could. Whether seeking transformation, stimulation, or a sense of home, music propels me forward, slows me down, centers me, and connects me to my community. In solitary confinement, mopping a floor, or writing a grueling assignment for class, music is my Friend. I like the hard stuff. I like the soft stuff. I love raging metal, and I love Alanis Morissette. I love disciplined rhythm, and I love freewheeling melodies. I love it all. Whether singing hymns with my grandmother in church, rocking out with my mom on a summer drive, headbanging with my friends in a ‘98 Grand AM, or disappearing into group resonance in a prison gym, life's journey sways to these honeyed melodies that dare to bare and to bear the vulnerability and bliss of grasping after this ever-elusive Mystery. I still listen to AM radio and clean my cell on Sunday mornings.
While in prison, I've purchased numerous CDs – we can own up to 24 in our property. I’ve currently got some Beatles, some Tool, but no Nirvana. Learning to play guitar got me hooked on Billy Strings, and now through him I have a schoolboy crush on Sarah Jarosz. I recently heard her angel voice sing a cover of U2's classic, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For . . . . Music takes us on this unknowable journey, the playlist for the ride always more important than the destination. Music embodies the exquisite longing we feel as an inherent part of being human, a longing to be welcomed and not outgrown. I hope I never find what I'm looking for. I hope the journey never ends. I savor every single note along the way.
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UPDATE —— GOOD NEWS! and an Ask:
As of last week, inmates here at Ft. Dodge are allowed to purchase tablets–— the prison is buzzing with happiness. This upgrade means I will be able to email from my cell instead of just from the day room, a major boon for my correspondence and writing process. This ALSO means we will get to purchase mp3s!!! The tablet and charger together cost $190 and new tracks will cost $1.75 each. (Yes. Don’t get me started on the racket they run in here.)
Thankfully I finally got a job mopping the unit, and this pays $0.28/hr, or roughly $30/ month which I supplement with the proceeds from paid subscribers on this substack.
So here is my ask: would you be willing to throw a few extra bucks into the proverbial hat to support my musical journey? If you would like to help me afford the cost of this new tablet and to purchase some new songs, you can venmo Lyndsey with the subject line “Music for Tony” and she will put the funds on my corrlinks account.
VENMO: @ Lyndsey-Scott-3 (last 4 digits of her phone are 3777)
Thank you so much for reading, thank you for supporting and commenting, thank you for walking with me and reminding me what it feels like to have community!
I am grateful for these stories. There hasn’t been a single writing of yours yet that didn’t leave me in a prayerful and reflective space. Thank you again brother.
And I relate similarly to music as the playlist to the ride of life, more important than the destination itself. Tool carried me through years of troubled youth, and onwards— I remember my heart aching in my chest and spine tingling when I first heard Stinkfist at the age of 16, my best friend at the time telling me it perfectly described his relationship to heroin.
I am honored to be learning more of your story, Tony. In the right time, someday, may we share stories and songs in person. May we share a meal and say a prayer for All Our Relations. In the meantime, I’ll be here, receiving your writings with gratitude, and sending blessings from Columbia, MO 🙏🏻