Phil Collins. I know. I can hear the ridicule now. Some of it even coming from myself. Some of it coming from the staff here at Hines Terrace Herald. Believe me, I know. However, this album is on my iPod and when I am riding in my car alone, I turn up the music. Loud. It is always a great shot of nostalgia.
The reason that this album makes this list is this: when I was just 14, I had the opportunity to go on a mission trip to Madagascar. From the time we took off from Orlando en route to the east coast of Africa, I was mesmerized with every part of the trip. Every moment was like living inside a dream. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of that trip, even 18 years later. And this album was a big part of that trip.
My team arrived in the capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo, loaded our luggage and supplies, and boarded several open air buses and headed north for our 10 hour bus ride to where we would be spending the rest of our summer. The whole bus ride was like opening up a National Geographic magazine and getting to walk into the pictures; all the smells, lights, people, accents, emotions, food, etc became real and I was amongst all of it. Before we loaded the bus, a leader of mine purchased two cassettes: U2:Zooropa and Phil Collins: Both Sides of the Story; neither of which had been released in the USA yet. Ah', the beauty of the black market. We listened to U2 first and everyone felt a little weird about it. I pretended to know the U2 sound, but really only knew them from the Joshua Tree tape and not so well. This was way before I knew it was cool to listen to U2. I knew my older brother was much cooler than me and that he listened to U2. I just hoped that second hand listening counted in some one's book. We listened to the Zooropa tape multiple times and then night set in and most people went to sleep. We had been traveling for three days and through three continents. Everyone was exhausted. I was very, very tired, but couldn't sleep. I hadn't really slept since we left Orlando. It was all too much to take in. How could you sleep when you were sitting in Ireland, Paris, Cyprus, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Djibouti, Somalia? When would I ever see those places again? I just couldn't get enough of everything.
The bus got very quiet as we continued to travel north past so many things that I had never seen before. Through mountains and past little villages further away from anything that had been normal to me. Fires burned in the distance and fewer traces of the 20th century could be seen. I climbed from my seat and into the window, so that the wind could blow through my hair and I could see better. It was a full moon and it felt like the whole sky was on display just for me. I hadn't ever seen the sky without refracted light. It seemed so clear that it seemed fake. It was just me and the sky. It was as if I were floating and the sky was encompassing me in all directions. And through all of this Phil Collins was playing in the background. It became the soundtrack to this moment. I rode for three or more hours like this; sitting in the window sill of the bus and holding onto the side of the roof and trying to see all that there was to see. I cannot see a full moon and not be drawn back to this moment. We arrived at our home for the summer and unloaded out things. We slept on the porch of the main house because it was four in the morning. I was greatly saddened because my brief moment had ended, but it was really just the beginning of a summer full of those moments. And Phil Collins was always playing in the background.
The U2 tape became a favorite, but the Phil Collins tape became the tape we all requested. It wasn't that we just loved the songs or felt that the lyrics described how we were feeling, but it was the mood of the music itself. It was slow and sad, but also hopeful, but most of all it seemed to let us see what it feels like to be both happy and sad and beautiful all at the same time. It was one of the first times in life that I found out that you could be all of those at once. I hadn't known that. I am so glad that all of those emotions snuck up on me as a young boy riding on the side of a bus and looking out at the night sky. I have never been the same since then.
I arrived back home two months later and about a month after the trip my family went to see Phil Collins in concert. I hadn't told them much about my experiences and how the tape had been playing in the background. Phil Collins is actually one of my dad's favorites. He partly likes him because he is short and bald and can still rock. I thought it was funny then and I still do. It is weird to see parts of your parents that you don't normally think about. You forget that they too were young once and they too had favorite songs and musicians. They too turned up the music loud and jammed out. The older I get the more I wished I had asked them about music. I could have learned a lot more. The concert was awesome. I don't mind saying that. Phil Collins played every instrument during the concert. It was truly incredible.
However, this album will always be about a wide-eyed young boy sitting in the window and watching the world go by and living inside a dream.
David
