I’ve got all the records in storage at the moment, pending the move which seems as far off as ever. I kept a small selection out to play but what I’ve realised, after being without them on a daily basis, is that I actually miss their actual presence more than the ability to play them!
Weird isn’t it? Dawn reckons they’re some sort of psychological comfort blanket. I think she’s right because even in my teens when I was asked why I collected records, I remember I said it was because they’d never let me down. At the time things were tricky at home so that was an important thing to me. That constancy has remained, there is a pleasing permanence to them. Not the same as furniture or anything like that. They’re like a cultural anchor that remains supportive through good and bad times.
I can just imagine explaining this to someone who doesn’t feel the same need but I’m sure most collectors feel it to a degree, especially since many I meet, just like owning the records and rarely or never play them. Every collector knows the pleasure derived from some long sought after record obtained out of the blue.
I often think when I pick something up from the late 60s, where has this been for over 55 years? What has it seen? All that time, all these years 56 Christmases, snow storms, marriages, birth and deaths. The record has been a witness to them all. Nothing else evokes such musings, especially if it's got a price sticker on telling you where it was originally bought from; perhaps a long defunct store. It was carried home excitedly that distant day, never dreaming it’d still be around all these decades later. Yet here it is.
Does this resonate with you? Do you feel it? Sometimes it’s like unearthing a diary. I guess they’re an emotional connection to the past. No wonder they weigh so much!!
photo;
Jem Stone from Chailey
