There’s this commercial where a woman comes into her house and experiences the unparalleled relief of taking off her bra after a long day at work. I think it’s a beer commercial. There’s a Toots and the Maytals song in it called Pressure Drop. It’s a great song, and if you know it, you’re probably grooving to it a little bit right now.
Or, at least, now you are. You’re welcome.
I love this song. Always have. Can’t remember a time when I didn’t know the words. After I’d heard it a few dozen times during a single baseball game awhile ago, I fired up the old Spotify and asked it to make me a playlist based on that song.
“This is quite a departure from your usual 80s punk playlists,” it said to me, hopefully more in interest than judgment. You never can tell with Spotify.
My whole life, I’ve been deeply into reggae music. Even at the peak of teenage angst, when my record collection was almost exclusively punk and new wave, I always made room and time for reggae.
And not just Bob Marley’s greatest hits CD that we all had and loved. I’m talking about artists that the average white boy in my suburban neighborhood in the 80s had never heard of, or had much reason to stumble across: Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, Burning Spear, Bunny Wailer, Steel Pulse, Toots and the Maytals. The stories they told in their music, the stories they told WITH their music, just always seemed to really land on me. There was something incredibly soothing, safe, and warm about reggae music that I didn’t get from any other music. I never really talked about it. Uncharacteristically for me, I kept it to myself. Guarded it. I only shared it with one other person, ever, and that was my friend, Dave, who loved the same music as I did, the same way I did. It’s a big part of a friendship that spans nearly three decades.
So I’m grooving a little, and then I’m grooving a lot, and then all of the sudden, with no warning or gentle ramp up, I suddenly realize why I love this music, and why I love it the way I do. The memory doesn’t wash over me in a wave as much as it picks me up along its face, tosses me into the curl, tumbles over and through me until it and I are indistinguishable from one another.
I am in the living room of my great grand parents’ farmhouse. I am sitting on the floor, atop an exotic rug that protects dark wood floors. It’s dimly lit, and the air is cool. My great grandparents are in front of me. My great grandfather, Papa, is in a pale blue guayabera and dark slacks. My great grandmother, Mum Mum, is wearing a flowing white dress, with a high neckline, and some colorful thread sewn into sleeves that stop just above her elbow. She is barefoot, holding the skirt out with one hand. Her other hand reaches to the ceiling and she twirls around it. She is pure joy and love. He watches her with tremendous affection.
Against the wall, a few feet away to my right, Toots and the Maytals’ cover of Louie, Louie, plays on their record player.
I am so safe. I am so loved. I am so special to them.
Just as quickly as it crashes over me, the memory is gone. I tumble out of the foam and cough some water out of my mouth. I claw at the memory as it recedes, but the ocean flows easily away from my grasp.
My great grandfather was Panamanian. He was born in Colon. My great grandmother was Jamaican. She was born in Kingston. I have always loved and cherished that I am descended, at least partly, from immigrants. I have such a privileged life. I know it’s the sort of life they dreamed of giving their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren — me! — when they came to America. I am doing the very best I can to make them proud and never waste it.
They brought so much with them to America: my grandmother and great aunt Val, who will become the most important person in my life, Central American and Caribbean culture, food, and fashion … and reggae music.
I never knew where it came from, but now I do. This suburban white boy got his deep, spiritual, love of reggae music from his Jamaican great grandmother, by way of Panama … because she made me feel safe, loved, and special. So of course her music makes me feel those things.
I am so grateful for that memory, and everything that came with it.
