The Water Will Run…

Recently I wrote an essay, “A Brief Explanation for My Recent Interest in Dire Straits,” which is forthcoming in the next edition of Cherry Tree. The piece includes references to a bunch of songs, some of them Boomer nostalgia jams and some of them cheesy Gen X high school dance standards. It doesn’t reference Jane’s Addiction’s Ritual de lo Habitual, except very allusively, because Ritual played an entirely different kind of role in my life. I remember how absolutely, wonderfully dangerous that album seemed when it came out, especially because it got so many of the Tipper Gore types so worked up.

Not long ago, I put the album on while my kids and I were hanging out at home, and I was thinking about how, as a parent, you want your kids to be able to appreciate the music that shaped you, but you can't make them do that. You almost can't even try introducing them to it. Ritual was a goddamn revelation because I discovered it for myself, and it was fearless and personal at a time when I needed some kind of music in my life that was fearless and mine. I can't give someone else the experience of getting swept up in the opening bars of "Stop!" and letting it blast me right past the last vestiges of my childhood. I can just hope they have one or two experiences like that of their own.