May 17, 2008: John Williams Saved My Childhood!

Last night, we attended a performance of the music of John Williams by the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. Though the mere handful of trumpet and trombone players didn't do as much justice to the Raiders of the Lost Ark March as I would have liked, I had a grand time listening to that music live.

It occurred to me while sitting in the darkness during the flying theme from E.T. that John Williams may have been responsible for making my often harrowing childhood into a better one than it might have been.

Without the Raiders march or the Superman theme to give me courage, I wonder what dull and staid person I'd be today. Without those five tones from Close Encounters, I wonder if I'd look up at the sky as much.

Of course, Spielberg and Lucas had much to do with it. But the music of John Williams had a certain portability that their movies didn't; I could carry it around in my head while riding my bicycle or walking in the woods or swimming back and forth underwater in the pool. It added an element of the performative to the stories, making me a participant.

Because of John Williams, I could be Indiana Jones or Han Solo anywhere I was, and I sure needed to be them to survive sometimes. I performed the dramatic escape from the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark many times running away from bullies at the bus stop. "Start the plane! Start the plane!" All they needed were spears.

So I publicly thank John Williams for providing a soundtrack that still plays in my own mental theater to this very day, probably helping me be a writer of big, strange, wondrous things.

(For Will trivia buffs in the audience, there are THREE pieces of music that always make me happy whenever I hear them, like some kind of switch: the Raiders march, the Superman theme, and a third song I'll never publicly reveal because I'd never hear the end of it. Yes, it's a pop song from the late eighties. But that's all I'm telling you.)

Posted by Will Ludwigsen on May 17, 2008 12:43 PM | Permalink