Another birthday recently passed and, as has become the custom, I bought my own present. (These things tend to come with adulthood and more than a decade of marriage.) This year I did the combination birthday + Christmas present move… I can pull that off from time to time since there is only a month between the two.
What was my big gift? A turntable (i.e. record player) and a pair of bookshelf speakers. Collecting vinyl records is one of my favorite hobbies and I accumulated quite a library over the past seven years. When it came time to pare down my personal belongings to the few things that could be shipped or carried in suitcases to England, I chose to sell off a huge selection of my records and give my vintage turntables to an aunt and a close friend. As I parsed through a collection of almost 400 vinyl records, I was pretty amazed at its quality. I had some really good stuff! I’m thankful that the albums were purchased by friends and family who agreed with me; I am confident that my records have found new homes where they will be loved as they were in mine.
There were 100 records from the collection with which I could not bear to part. If you didn’t know, 100 records are quite heavy; there was no way they were going in a suitcase on the plane! I researched how to ship albums overseas, packed them up, entrusted them to UPS, and prayed they would get through customs in tact.
I was so excited when I opened my box of records in my Cambridge living room and found that not a single album was damaged! In the midst of refurnishing a whole household, the record player gets bumped to the bottom of the list beneath “necessities” like pans and furniture and clothes. It took almost three months for it to come back around, but birthday + Christmas provided a good excuse to get the old LPs spinning again!
Why do I love vinyl records so?
I love the way they sound.
Some will argue the point, but I find the experience undeniable; vinyl records have a warm tone that is missing in digital music.
I love the tactile nature of the experience.
Playing a record requires taking it out of the sleeve, placing it on the platter, and dropping the needle. While it plays, I look at the cover art and read the liner notes. After the first five songs have played, I flip the record and play Side B. When the experience is over, I carefully wipe off any dust, insert it in the sleeve, and put it back in its home.
I love the context.
Listening to a record has a built-in level of inconvenience. If I want to hear the third song on Side A, I have to drop the needle in just the right spot. I don’t like doing this, so I usually listen to all of Side A instead. This forces me to hear the first half of the album’s songs in the context the artist intended. You see, artists used to write songs with albums in mind. Songs were organized on the album in a certain way for a reason. Often, a song was expected to be heard in the context of the one that came before and the one that came after. The listening experience was not one track; it was one side. The context mattered.
I love the hunt.
I am a collector at heart. Whether its at a yard sale, thrift shop, record store, or on Amazon, I really enjoy choosing albums that I will keep, treasure… and ship across the Atlantic.
I love the attentiveness that is required.
When it comes down to it, I love the attentiveness that is required to have and enjoy a record collection. To truly engage in its beauty, in its richness, you have to allow yourself to be inconvenienced enough to pay attention. We like to multitask, as if touching a million things without committing fully to any of them means that somehow we have accomplished more. We like to stumble through an endless variety of options, as if having access to everything means that we actually possess anything that was chosen intentionally or that matters personally. A record invites you to look through a shelf of options and make a decision. A record invites you to engage with it more intentionally, more fully. A record invites you to push other distractions aside and pay attention, as if it is saying, “Something held within these shiny black grooves is worth your focus. If you’re not careful, you will miss it. Pay attention.”
Life is full of beauty hidden away in little grooves where we would least expect it. Elizabeth Barrett Browning has likely put it best:
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
“Aurora Leigh” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
And every common bush afire with God,
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
I need simple, physical things to remind me of what matters most in life. Records remind me to slow down and pay attention. They remind me that life is full of beauty which is easily overlooked. They remind me to be intentional and make a decision. They remind me that the most wonderful things are often hidden in unusual places.
Greek philosophers talked about “the good,” “the true,” and “the beautiful.” Our hearts are drawn toward things with these inherent, transcendental qualities. Mine certainly is. I feel it deep in my bones every time I look at the changing leaves of a tree, the clothes my kids have outgrown, a shelf of books I have yet to read… or a stack of records waiting to be played.
Earth is indeed crammed with heaven. Shall we take off our shoes and linger a moment? Let’s spin a record and be surprised by the beauty we find hidden in the grooves.
P.S. – The things that I find so valuable about records are many of the same things that cause generations of Christians to love liturgical worship. We need these worship experiences now more than ever due to the frantic pace of our postmodern, digital lives. We need slow, intentional elements that engage our senses and train our hearts to gaze upon God. We need a regular space that pushes back against the intrusion of the world’s busy-ness and invites us to linger on the Beauty of God revealed in Christ, reminding us to find him in the easily overlooked grooves in daily life.
Wonder what records I kept? Take a look at my collection.
