Hello folks. I hope you're all doing well on this lovely June afternoon. I'm back at work today. Feels a little bit strange, but I'll be working staggered shifts until the Illinois Phase 4 plan comes to fruition. Sounds like that could be happening as soon as next month. We shall see. This pandemic has done a decent job proving that, even as adults, as we go through life, none of us have any idea what we're truly doing.
Last week I had mentioned that this week's post would stray from the theme of this blog. Although Barber Shop Ballads by The Four Mugs is not a polka album, it's a record that I wanted to showcase due to the memories I have attached to it.
Early on in my young adulthood, I was an avid collector of any "obscure" record I could get my hands on. It's pretty much why this blog came into existence in the first place. I would always be scraping the bottom of the barrel at thrift stores, picking up the wax that no one else dared touch. This would include collections of 1920's carnival music, Chinese violin compositions, polka (duh), and anything with a cheesy floral arrangement on its cover.
Over the years I've gotten rid of a lot of this stuff. When my depression and anxiety was at its peak I would look through this portion of my collection and derive absolutely no joy from it. "What did I ever see in this crap?" I'd think as I flipped through my record shelf. Looking back, I wish I would have kept it. I derive joy from it now!
But how would I have known then that I'd feel this way now? I don't beat myself up about it too much, especially since these types of records are still available in MASSIVE quantities at any second-hand establishment. My lovely fiance Danielle has a tattoo that I think about all the time. It says "It's never too late to be what you might have been." My entire healing process has been me pushing myself to get back on that correct path; the one I was directed away from momentarily. It might not be the same path, but I can see a similar destination in the horizon.
Okay so what does this all have to do with this silly record? Barber Shop Ballads would grow to represent a period of my life that I thought was lost forever. It represented that bitter-sweet naivety that many of us in our late teens and early 20's take for granted. I'll never forget when I first came across this record. "WOW A BARBER SHOP QUARTET? YOU DON'T SEE THESE KIND OF RECORDS EVERY DAY!" As it turns out, as I would later learn, you DO see these kind of records quite often. I kept the album around because it comforted me, and I'd look at it with hope that good times would again find me in the future.
Every track on Barber Shop Ballads should be pretty recognizable if you've watched as many cartoons as I have over the years. My Old Kentucky Home and Clementine have acted as theme songs of sorts for Huckleberry Hound, while Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes was featured in I Love To Singa (which is easily my most favorite short of all time). There is a Tavern in Town helps complete the connection between this album and the rest of this blog, and that's the excuse I'm going to use to include it on the Polka Hole.
Take a seat in the Shade of the Old Apple Tree and remember that we all good times to look forward to on the horizon. Here's to new beginnings.
DOWNLOAD HERE:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/0hh0011zg4it66c/The_Four_Mugs_-_Barber_Shop_Ballads_MP3s.zip/file
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