This afternoon I got in the car and Tracy Chapman's song Talkin' 'bout a Revolution was playing. "That's a groovy little bass line," I said to myself. It was the second time in recent weeks I'd had the same reaction to a song I thought I knew well. Back in late October I was listening to Aretha Franklin on Spotify and I thought the selfsame thing.
When I was in college I played the heck out of both those albums. Dissatisfied Women was kind of a theme in my dorm room; Melissa Etheridge and Patsy Cline were also in heavy rotation. But I had never noticed the bass parts that stood out to me so clearly on my recent listens.
It is possible that my college-era stereo didn't render the bass parts very faithfully with its cheap little woofers. I did not own a subwoofer until I married Elwood and became a subwoofer owner-in-law, and from that point on the Dissatisfied Women got less airtime. It is also possible that I just didn't pay much attention to bass parts until I learned to play the bass last year. It has changed the way I listen to music, because I always keep an ear out now for that percussive floor.
I am curious: was the issue that I couldn't hear the bass part clearly back in 1989, or did I just not pay attention to it because the voices seemed more important? I suppose I'll never know.
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