Light My Fire

Ahh, the memories.

I was driving in to work this morning and Light My Fire came on the XM box.
I always chuckle a bit when it comes on as it reminds of a little incident that happened oh, 30 or so years ago.

My brother used to be in a band. He played keyboards in a little rock and roll garage band most of his high school years and a bit after graduation.
This band and another local band - who was their main competitor - played all the high school dances - proms, homecomings and various other socials, along with public appearances at various other venues around the valley.

They were around in the late 60's - early 70's and played mostly Top 40-type rock and roll for that era. Songs such as "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly; "Suzie Q" and "Proud Mary" by Creedence; "The Pusher" and "Born To Be Wild" by Steppenwolf; "D.O.A." by Bloodrock; and "Hello, I Love You" and of course, "Light My Fire" by The Doors.

I guess he was the one who had the most influence on my music, as far as liking rock music and such. I listened to his records when he wasn't around, (with his permission of course), I played his bands' instruments when they would leave them at the house between practices (with their permission? Not so much), and of course totally dug listening to their band at the dances they played for. I had bragging rights to my friends: "That's my brother on the keyboard up there...".
My friends and I also had an "in" with requests. They would usually play the songs we asked them for, which we all thought was pretty cool.

Now around this same time, we were family friends with the family responsible for cleaning and general maintenance of the church we attended. (Yes, I used to go to church. Shut up.)
This church was a rather large church. It could easily hold 2 or 3 thousand people. If that family left town for a vacation or somesuch, we would take care of the church for them. This was a job I sorely despised, but one of those things you do for friends. And some facets of the job were cool. We had access to all the places most people don't.

The furnace room for instance (Hey, when you're a young kid, that sort of machinery is fascinating!), the tower (roughly 120 feet high), and the organ/sound system. (Hmmm. Brother plays keyboards in a band, and there's a huge church organ here. What could he be leading up to?). Since it was a rather large church, all the support equipment was rather sizey for a regular old church.

Well, one day we're doing the regular stuff there. My mother and I were in the gymnasium doing some puttering, Dad was down in the basement doing furnace stuff, and my brother was in the chapel doing some work.
All of a sudden, we hear the organ fire up. Of course my mother - a veeeeeery religious person - was thinking bro' was going to ease into some hymns we could listen to whilst doing our chores.
Oh, no. Not even close. He had cranked the organ up about half volume, which is way sufficient for an empty chapel, and started belting out the keyboard portion of "Light My Fire".

OH DEAR! The sinfulness! The sacrelidge! The blasphemy!
My mothers dentures damn near flew out of her mouth as she ran into the chapel screaming at the top of her lungs for him to stop playing that heathen-ness on the church organ! "IF YOU'RE GOING TO PLAY THE ORGAN, PLAY SOME HYMNS OR SOMETHING WORTHY OF BEING PLAYED IN GOD'S HOUSE!!!"

Well, I was laughing my ass off, dad emerged from the basement wondering what the hell was going on, and my long-haired, hippy-looking bro' had a shit-eating grin on his face as he quietly shut the organ off, closed the top, and slithered off the bench to go on about his duties.

To this day, any time I hear that song, I see that image and give myself a good chuckle.


Just thought you should know.





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