The sweet music

I spent most of the Eighties living on boats in the summer, running first small charters and eventually moving up to larger tourist boats. I was divorced at the time and my daughter would come in the summers and spend several weeks with me living on the boat and getting a taste of that world. In time she thrived, but at first, at the age of 6 and the first time she had left familiar surroundings for any length of time, she was unsure of herself and it took her some time to adjust. And, of course I needed some adjustment too.

I tried to make her as comfortable as possible but in the first days she had trouble falling asleep on the boat. She could never tell me why and I tried everything I could to help but nothing seemed to work until one night I hit on something we hadn't tried.

The last time I had gone into a town I had brought back a few 8-tracks because that's what kind of player was wired into the boat. One of those albums was Willie Nelson's "Stardust." One of those early nights when she had trouble falling asleep, I put that album on and played it low volume. The next time I looked in on her she was sound asleep. After that every night at bed time it was "play the sweet music, Daddy." And sweet music became the go-to bed time music through most of our years on the boats.

A few years later when she was old enough to be buying her own music she told me "Stardust" was one of the first CDs she bought. As technology changed, I have bought it in the 8-track as I said, but also in a cassette and then a CD.

Attached here are a couple of examples, the title track and "Unchained Melody;" Willie Nelson like you have never heard him before or since. Sweet music, indeed.