The Girl in the Scarf

“‘Progressive rock wasn’t about being complicated for the sake of it. It was about creating worlds with music-big, beautiful, sometimes mad worlds where listeners could lose themselves completely for a while.”

– Rick Wakeman

I’ve had that quote favorited for some time and kept meaning to write something inspired by it, so here’s my chance. I favorited this quote because I love it to pieces. It got me thinking about how my love of prog has shifted through the years. Since it entered my life at the age of 12, I’ve grown to see it as a major signifier that one part of my life was ending and another was beginning. My childhood, full of relative simplicity, was over, and life was becoming more complex, full of strange new emotions and experiences. Some of these changes were great, while others were devastating. Prog came into my life as I entered a new school and discovered my talents. It was there while I struggled to explain my appreciation of this music to others my age who just didn’t get it. My enthusiasm caught the attention of a teacher here and there, especially my seventh grade history teacher. I had brought the copy of Nick Mason’s book Inside Out, to class one day, which prompted her to tell me all about the Pink Floyd shows she had attended, from Dark Side of the Moon up to The Division Bell.

I’ll admit, in the very early days, part of what drew me to prog was largely its complexity. It did things I didn’t even know one could do with music. But by my teens, I was delving more into the bands that spoke less of wizards and giant hogweeds, and more about life and intellectualism. Bands like Rush, Pink Floyd, and The Moody Blues made me feel seen. I felt like they were asking all the same questions I was asking. I found life and the world very confusing (still do at times!), so it was a huge comfort having these musical intellectuals on my shoulder, whispering (and sometimes screaming) their lessons into my ears.

Even now, at 28, I still have those voices on my shoulder. The sing the same words, but I hear them and interpret them in different ways.