6 minute read
Outside Your Office Window
INSIDE A SONG
OUTSIDE YOUR OFFICE WINDOW By: Robbie Pryor
Pryor, Priest & Harber
Music has covered me like a blanket my entire life. The gift was given early by my mother and father. My father’s extensive record collection and encyclopedic knowledge of all genres of music are part of a DNA shared by me and my siblings. Music was a constant in my house growing up. My father’s music system was located in the basement, and when he played it, the notes and melody traveled up through the floor and filled the house. Of course this was before you could hold an entire music library in a phone, and people would come to our house just to hear the music. I didn’t truly understand its power until my adolescence and my first dance with Robyn Weese on the old wood floors of Farragut Middle - Open Arms by Journey. Only later did I realize the scope and breadth of the gift my father had given me. No kid my age was so schooled in the beauty of music. My parents took us to Red Gate Bluegrass Festival on hot summer days to hear the music and eat fried chicken. They dragged us to Buddy’s BBQ on Friday nights to hear the music. How many children growing up in the 70’s and 80’s knew the words to Merle Haggard, Elvis Presley and Van Morrison songs? Any given night, Tom T. Hall, Buck Owens and the Bee Gees might be on the menu. He would sit before his sound system, spinning records and reel-to-reel tape players, implanting our impressionable brains with Stagger Lee by Lloyd Price, all of Buddy Holly’s music, and the Motown sound. The diversity of his music tastes flows through all of us. It was a pure love of music, except Pat Boone. Pat Boone sucks.
My love for music has so affected me that each and every major event can be summoned with just a chord, a lyric or a song. My first dance with Cheryl - True by Spandau Ballet. Our song was Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison. In high school, my Camaro broke down in Cades Cove while we were listening to REO Speedwagon. While smoke billowed from the engine, I was still able to play the music while we waited for help and talked about life. When I hear the beautiful riffs of The Clash or The Violent Femmes, I’m transported to fraternity parties and pregame parties at the University of Tennessee. Of course Rocky Top runs like a stream through my life, but other standards, like Fox on the Run by The Country Gentlemen and Tennessee by Jimmy Martin grab my heart just as much. I still tear up while singing the Alma Mater at halftime. My heart aches when I hear Kurt Cobain’s voice and unique guitar notes, because he was a constant companion in law school. I suppose each of us has a soundtrack to our life. We recognize it every now and then. Perhaps you have a Spotify playlist. In my day the tool of the trade was the mix tape, and I was the master of the trade. Sometimes I come across an old one, the penmanship on the label fading, and its very presence sends me to a place of nostalgia and melancholy.
Andy, Shelby, Cheryl, and I swayed to Heartbreak Town by the Dixie Chicks just hours before Cheryl passed. My heart sinks every time I hear it. The joy of Hey Ya, by Outcast still makes me smile through tears as the playback of driving all four of the kids to school runs through my brain, all of them signing along with the volume on 9, Cori shaking her hand to the lyric “shake it like a polaroid picture.” There is 2-year-old Andy in his car seat, singing Superman by Five for Fighting. Then there is Nancy. I Need to Know by Mark Anthony was the first song in our Latin Dance class, its beat taking me to a place where love was allowed back in my life. Follow Me by Uncle Kracker was the first song I put on her mp3 player, a gift for her to listen to while she ran. Since then, every song has been our song, as I endeavored to recreate a home filled with music for her and my kids. When she calls me her personal DJ, I know she could never live without me. All music would sound like me. On a pier bar stage in the Caribbean Sea, she returned from the bathroom to see me on stage with the band. I sang every word of You Shook Me All Night Long by ACDC to her great embarrassment and shock. It was our honeymoon, nearly 20 years ago. The performance was awful. She loved it. I make a playlist for every trip, occasion or event. What was the first song you put on the car stereo on your sixteenth birthday, when you were alone in a car behind the steering wheel for the first time in your life? For me it was Highway to Hell by ACDC, followed by Detroit Rock City by Kiss. A car was freedom. Music told you so. INXS, Duran Duran, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles Greatest Hits and Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits lined the floorboard of my car, all of the music within arms reach. I’ll be 53 this year. I put on my headphones when I walk to work. I play music when I write and when I’m in the office. I tried a case in Cookeville in July. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through without Oasis, Joe Purdy, Johnny Cash and Weezer. It is never too late to discover. Bruce Springsteen and John Prine came to me later in life, and I’m so grateful. From the music of Barney and Baby Bop, to the melancholy notes of Ashoken Farewell played at Cheryl’s funeral, to the church hymns of my youth, I find solace and sadness, hope and pain, and, above all such joy from the music of my life. It helps me understand and accept the journey. It pushes me, inspires me, and helps me to keep everything under control. It is one of the many gifts given to a son by his father. What is your soundtrack? Discover it, revisit it, and let it wash over you like water. It will make clients more tolerable and the anxieties of this profession more acceptable. Music simply makes life better. Turn it up.
ANNUAL FALL HIKE
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6
The Professionalism Committee invites you to the annual fall hike on Saturday, November 6 at 10:00 a.m. at Frozen Head State Park in Wartburg, approximately an hour from downtown Knoxville. Frozen Head State Park is situated in the beautiful Cumberland Mountains of Eastern Tennessee. Appropriately for lawyers, we will hike the Judge Branch Trail, which is about a 3-3.5 mile round trip. It is listed as a moderate hike.
We will meet at 10 a.m. at Picnic Shelter A (it’s on the right, about two minutes from the park entrance). Everyone should bring snacks and water for hiking as well as food and your favorite beverage for a post-hike picnic lunch.
Please confirm your participation by registering online (click on November 6 on the event calendar at www.knoxbar.org). If you have questions about the hike, please contact Eddy Smith at esmith@kmfpc.com. If you’re bringing food or drink for lunch, please let James Stovall know at jstovall@rdjs.law.
Everyone is welcome to bring their family and join us on Saturday, November 6!
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