We all are the main characters in the story of our lives and we all have countless “main character moments.” Thankfully, many of those are soundtracked. Some of these songs are played by us and others seem to be programmed by fate itself. What better feeling is there than the right song at the right time? A song we didn’t choose but that seemingly chose us? It feels like purpose and meaning and—for 3 minutes or so—like home. Caveman Chronicles is a memoir about home, leaving it, and coming back again. It is also a memoir about how I became the unlikely founder of the destination music venue, The Caverns.These are some of the songs that tracked along with my story, some I (seemed) to choose, most were needle drops from that great DJ in the sky.
Caveman Chronicles Playlist: Soundtrack to Todd Mayo's Memoir
By Todd Mayo
This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) - Talking Heads
The first chapter of Caveman Chronicles, “The Eagle and the Child,” is about finding freedom (the eagle) and fatherhood (the child). I found professional freedom in Louisville, Kentucky in 2007, the same year my son was born. I had realized my dreams as an entrepreneur and as the owner of my own destiny. But I walked away from it. Shit, that hurt! I had been on a quest for home since I was ejected prematurely from the womb and, by 2007, I had traversed through many homes. I chose to leave some and was evicted from others. Or was it fate? I guess that’s in some ways what this book is about—home and fate. It’s like the song says: “Home, it’s where I want to be / Pick me up and turn me round” … “Feet on the ground, head in the sky / It’s ok, I know nothings wrong.”
I Will Follow - U2
Bono was fourteen when his mother died. “I Will Follow '' is the first song from the first U2 album, Boy. It is a song about loss of innocence and the voyage to maturity amidst that loss. In the chapter “The Tiger and The Lamb” I write about my own similar voyage at eleven years old and how U2’s Under a Blood Red Sky (a live album from Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado) was the score to my mythic awakening. With this album as my soundtrack, I was transported through suffering to a place that felt like home. In “I will Follow” Bono references “Amazing Grace,” singing: “I was blind / I could not see” and later “I was lost / I am found.” The song is an homage to grace, redemption, yearning for innocence, and familial bonds. I was young and dealing with the disgrace of my father’s arrest, my parents’s subsequent divorce, and my father’s exile from home. I didn’t consciously think about any of this. I just loved The Edge’s guitar riff and the spirit that Bono and the band conveyed in that video I saw on MTV. I was ready to follow then. Still am now.
Let’s Go Crazy - Prince
Going back and looking at the music that came out in the summer of 1984 is like going back and looking at paintings that came out in the 15th Century. “I’ll see your Mona Lisa, Leonardo, and I’ll raise you David” might have been a thought in the mind of Michaelangelo. There are artistic times in the world where it’s just like that. Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Van Halen all released their biggest albums ever in the Orwellian year of 1984. It was in the heat of that summer that, at least for teen culture, everything changed.
Yes, I had heard of Prince. “Little Red Corvette” was a Casey Kasem chart climber a year or so before. But then, like a purple big bang, Purple Rain dropped, the album and then the movie. Everything stopped. It felt like Prince bent heaven and earth to his will, as if he connected to the heavenly bluetooth speaker and we all got to listen and join in. Raging against the machine, the dying of the light, all that is and ever will be, set me free!
Institutionalized - Suicidal Tendancies
Riding around with my buddy Chad in his parents’ minivan at two or three in the morning—13 years old, drinking quarts of Stag beer, listening to The Repo Man soundtrack—is not something I’m proud of or that I want my kids to know. But it’s something that happened. And what a soundtrack of male teenage angst and anger and humor it is, to this day. “Institutionalized” was a bit personally prophetic when, a few years later, I would be institutionalized myself, by my mother, against my will. “All I wanted was a Pepsi," sang the protagonist, and all I wanted was a Little Debbie Star Crunch. But wants and needs are two separate things and maybe, just maybe, I needed that time there, in intensive care.
Add It Up - Violent Femmes
If “I Will Follow” was a song that saved my life then “Add It Up” was the song that ruined my life. I dedicated this song to my girlfriend after a surefire home run to lose my virginity was robbed at the last second by a too inquisitive stepdad. My own callous insensitivity drove away my first love and sent me deep into the toxic depths of teenage angst, bitterness, and regret. My son would call this a “main character moment.” For me, this song was the soundtrack to self-induced heartbreak. Only years later did it dawn on me that my way-too-early dip into the adult pool of sexuality was premature and the perspective that only time brings allows me to laugh now at a moment and a song that for years brought me tears. This song is as good an anthem for teenage male confused sexual yearning as there could be, I reckon.
I Melt With You - Modern English
Ahh, yes. The other side of the coin! Ascending the stage and commandeering the mic with my best bud Chad at the 8th grade dance was what I felt to be an epic experience that gave external voice to my internal feelings. “Trapped in a state of imaginary grace.” There is that word again, grace. Stopping time, there is that theme again. I don’t think I have ever been in love since those days without listening to this song and feeling this feeling. “I’ll stop the world and melt with you.” What more needs to be said about the power of love? Lovely.
Angel Of The Night - The Steeldrivers
This is from the first ever show in the cave at Bluegrass Underground, August 16th, 2008. I’m so happy that we filmed it (thanks, Johnathan!). The power of this band, at that time—with Chris Stapleton’s epic voice and Tammy Rodgers’s emotive and visceral fiddling—encapsulated everything I dreamed of doing with my musical venue, The Caverns. For a boy whose musical awakening was a live moment captured from Red Rocks, being underground in my own “Red-Rocksian” creation with a band this amazing and a performance this transcendent was one hell of an awakening to the music business. “Let me fly on your wings / rise above these earthly things / let it all be alright / angel of the night!” Amen.
Thunderstruck - AC/DC
Imagine bearing witness to your brother's first psychotic break with reality when you're not quite sure if it’s the drugs or if he’s trying to be funny or is there something else going on here. I would vacillate between the three in a hotbox Memphis summer in 1995. In Caveman Chronicles, I write about an incident when the full electric mania was stripped bare just as this song rained over Oakbend Drive. Thunder rolled and the lighting itself was seemingly conducted by a manic maestro at the peak of his “powers.” Hard to hear this one and not think of all that.
Spiritman - Johnny Huckle
We were in Tamworth, Australia to do a special edition of Music City Roots in early 2013. Even though we had the whole show booked, we could not resist bringing a few folks we found busking on the streets to the stage. One of them was Johnny Huckle, an aboriginal artist who played and sang with such passion and deep wisdom that it echoes in my soul to this day. He emerged on stage, alone with a guitar as big as he was and proceeded to take everyone to a transformative place. He can do it even now, to you, if your spirit is open. Go and listen! “To be a man / I can choose to just exist / Or of myself be more demanding / I’m reaching back / in search of destiny / to find some truth and understanding.” Just go listen, seriously… now!
Goodnight Loser - Scott Miller & Rayna Gellert
As bittersweet a song about infidelity as I’ve heard. It was the great and underrated Scott Miller and this song that comforted me in the darkest throes of rejection. The forlorn fiddle wails behind the vocal stages of grief that are vocalized in the subtle tones of Scott’s voice as the protagonist processes anger, depression, nostalgia, and ultimately—possibly? maybe?—something else.
Grace’s Song - Jim Lauderdale
From a place of deep pain, I made a request: I asked Jim Lauderdale on his visit to Music City Roots to play Touch of Grey by the Grateful Dead. I thought it would make me feel better. Well, Jim didn’t play that one, but he played a song of his own making that I had never heard before. It speaks of shadows, smiles, growth, and hope over fear. “Grace’s Song”showed me mercy was waiting at the gate. My God! It’s not just a song, it’s a plea, an invocation. Lots of things come from within—compassion and mercy and courage and wisdom—but not grace. Grace is bestowed. Just like a prayer, I didn’t get the song I asked for. I got the song I needed.
40 - U2
The last song could have been the first song on this list because it closed out the first tape I ever got. U2 had 40 minutes left on a session for the War album and Bono opened the Bible, drew inspiration from the lyrical psalms of David, and chose psalm 40. Bono quotes the lyrics but adds the refrain of “How long to sing this song? How long? How long? To sing this song.” On the Under The Blood Red Sky version from Red Rocks and at every live playing of this song, the crowd sings in unison as the musicians, one by one, leave the stage and leave the crowd to continue the plea. In one sense it’s still an unanswered question. In another sense, it’s not.