Before and After

What is your best before and after memory? A memory of a time where you did not have a thing or maybe you had an expectations of a thing and then the thing happened and then there was the after.  Right now, I assume there are many Trump fans who had a very deep desire to have him elected and then there was the election and then there is the after.  The Before and After.

I’m going to immediately negate marriage and having children because those memories are the greatest ever and they can never be outdone and blah blah blah happiness. Blah. Blah. Blah. Happiness.

What is a something that you had great expectations of, and then it happened, all your expectations were met and then now you live with the memory of how great they were?

Mine is U2’s The Joshua Tree.

In 1987, I was a seventeen years old boy. I knew very little about music.  I listened to the local pop station on the radio.  Our family did not have cable, so I didn’t have access to MTV, which by this time was starting to tap into the Alternative Music market.  I think I owned an El DeBarge 45 of ‘Rhythm of the Night’ and a cassette of Men at Work’s ‘Business as Usual.’ Again, I admit that I knew very little about music.

But not Dave and Doug.  The twins from my class seemed to have excellent taste in alternative music.  They’d talk about The Dead Milkmen and Morrissey and U2 and XTC and New Order.  They would debate song lyrics and I would pretend like I had heard them and make up my own analysis. I had no idea.

In 1987 Doug and Dave were absolutely fucking on edge (on Edge?) about this new U2 album, The Joshua Tree.  They had copies of Rolling Stone with articles about the release.   They drew images of the Joshua Tree on their book covers.  They counted down to its release. They waited.

I was excited for them.  I was familiar with U2 and I’m sure I had heard their music somewhere.  Right?

And then the album was released. Fucking Dave and Doug were absolutely blown away. So was I. I didn’t know anything about music and I think I only remember liking about half of the album when it came out. Thinking that some of it was really good. Thinking some of it was just OK.

Time passes.

You might be a naysayer, but I think The Joshua Tree is one of the Top 10 Albums of all time.  I’d stick it in the top 3 because not much changes, and, like I said, I still really don’t know much about music. It’s a great album.  I can stick it in the CD player or put it on repeat on iTunes and listen to it for 30 hours straight.  It’s very good. Just ask Doug or Dave.

And here I am. An observer of the time before The Joshua Tree and of the time after.  There was a time in my life where “Where the Streets Have No Name” did not exist. And then it did. It’s my before and after. What is your before and after?