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Seldom does a month go by when some beaten-down dude isn't walking in with a box of CDs or LPs and going on about how keeping the peace means more than keeping the music.
A grizzled weekend music warrior came into my used record store recently looking for the reissued Exile on Main St. by the Rolling Stones. He informed me casually he’d just gotten married (again). Without thinking, I responded, “So it’s cool with her you still have your music?”
He looked at me and said in a voice half as gruff as Howlin’ Wolf’s, “I had my music before I had her.” He paused, chuckling, and then added, “And I’ll have it after her, too.” We both laughed.
My question was prompted by one of the great mysteries I’ve encountered while running my business over the course of 22 years: Why do wives make their husbands get rid of their record collections?
If I’ve heard this once, I’ve heard it dozens of times. “The wife said they had to go.” Or, “My wife told me she was gonna put ’em outside on the curb.” Or, “They’re taking up too much space and my wife won’t let me have ’em in the basement/ living room/ garage anymore.”
I don’t get it. Can’t a man have his music and his woman? Now, I realize this isn’t the case in a lot of relationships. I’m sure there are plenty of women who tolerate and even enjoy their guy’s thing for music—maybe they even have their own coveted collections.
But I have to tell you, I’ve seen it happen enough that it makes me wonder what’s going on. Perhaps it’s jealousy. Maybe she’s thinking, “He loves his Grand Funk Railroad albums more than me.” Or, “What does John Coltrane have that I don’t that brings my dear stupid husband so much pleasure?”
I envision said miscreant husband wearing headphones, eyes closed, hands clasped behind his head, smiling as he tunes out whatever is around him and falls into the pure pleasure zone that’s music. She hasn’t seen him smile with his eyes closed around her since college.
And thus the ax falls. Unspoken: Them or me, what’s it gonna be?
I do understand I have been the prime beneficiary of this power play. Perhaps not as much as the wife, true. But I’m serious when I say seldom does a month go by when some beaten-down dude isn’t walking in with a box of CDs or LPs and going on about how keeping the peace means more than keeping the music.
Sad, really.
But the best jazz LP collection I ever bought came to me under just such conditions. It was the day after Christmas one year and this longtime customer wandered in, looking glum. He told me his wife wanted to pay off the Christmas credit card bills immediately, so those three crates full of albums in the cramped dining room had to go. He said she spoke with thunder.
I drove to his place in Clintonville and there they were: some 200 fine-conditioned jazz recordings. Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk and every second-stringer, too. It was a haul and it was beautiful. And she showed no mercy as I priced them while he looked on, depressed.
Some headed to the store and in the bins; the rest went home where I savored and explored America’s finest native art form, hanging on to them long enough to deeply absorb their artistry and beauty, then eventually brought them in to sell. Mmm, delicious. I have never enjoyed a jazz buy as much as that one.
Thank you, ma’am.
So, what ever happened to the poor dude who sold me the fabulous jazz collection? Interestingly—and he’s the only guy this has ever happened with—he returned some time later and asked to buy it back.
She’d relented, apparently. My reaction?
Too late. They’re mine now.
