My dad's music came on 45s and an AM radio. Country. The Grand Ole Opry. Hee Haw.

My mom's soundtrack was oldies on 2WD and vinyl records, and later, afternoons watching Turner Classic Movies.

I grew up listening to twang, crooners, and orchestras long before I knew there were stations that played anything else. I grew up singing Elvira in a 68 Ford with no AC and vinyl seats that stuck to my thighs.

But I coveted my sister's little radio and when she ran off and left it behind, it became mine.

One evening I turned the dial and somehow landed on Z104.

The 1980s exploded in my ears.

Those songs became my songs.

I even got a Walkman and wore the headphones like they were a hairband, the foam earpieces giving me relief, blocking out the adult world, words, arguments, confusion. Giving me the radio and occasional pilfered tape from my sister’s house.

Some songs became my world. I got a boombox and recorded songs off the radio. I played some over and over writing the lyrics down with my best friend. Cyndy Lauper’s Time After Time our anthem. We dreamed of being stars. Being the artist, the writer, the songwriter.

I assumed the people singing them had written them. It never occurred to me that Bananarama hadn't created Venus, or that Madonna wasn't the first voice behind Fever. Aerosmith was of course all original… HA! I was a teen of the Virginia Beach suburbs. I had no record store on the corner or a basement.

I was completely unaware. Babe in the woods.

There were no music history lessons in our house. Occasionally a van with an 8 track in our driveway. There was a television. There was a radio. There was a library that claimed authority over subjects I had no interest in. But as digital age overwhelmed me, I learned how to swing on vines and research questions I didn’t know to ask decades ago.

But every once in a while, a vine breaks, and I fall, tumble, in surprise, back down to the roots.

One vine, 40 years old, did just that. Snap. Boom.

I discovered Jimi Hendix hadn't written All Along the Watchtower. It was Bob Dylan’s. My beloved Jimi Hendrix had transformed a song written by Bob Dylan. Not copied it. Not stolen it. Transformed it.

So I started to go out on more limbs, follow then down to their roots. Where had songs I loved come from?

The more I looked, the stranger it became.

Sometimes the version I loved was a cover.

Sometimes the "original" I discovered wasn't the original at all.

It was another interpretation of a song that had already lived another life.

What on earth was going on?

Eventually I learned that, for much of popular music, songs and recordings were considered different things. Songwriters wrote compositions. Performers recorded interpretations. A great song wasn't necessarily expected to have only one voice. It could travel. It could evolve. It could gather new arrangements, new audiences, and even new meanings.

Then the 1990s arrived.

Suddenly the conversation seemed to change.

Sampling.

Copyright lawsuits.

Who owned the riff?

Who deserved the royalties?

Who had stolen from whom?

Music became filled with legal battles and headlines about ownership.

I despise conflict largely because i grew up in a volatile household. It doesn’t interest me. It turns me off.

But hose disputes for me became gateways and maps.

Every lawsuit and headline and dispute sent me back to a collaborative family tree.

People like myself were introduced to older artists. Some of us bought old albums, compared versions, and found themselves wandering through decades of music they might never have explored otherwise.

For me, songs have started behaving more like stories than possessions. Ironically, they've only fueled my desire to research, collect, and buy more vinyl. Sue me. Ha!

One voice begins a song.

Another voice answers.

Another voice reimagines.

Another younger generation mistakes the latest branch for the whole tree.

Until curiosity tugs on a vine.

Music can stop looking like isolated masterpieces and starts looking like a collaborative family tree.

A Few Vines I Swung

Song Songwriter / First Recording Version That Introduced It to Me

Venus Shocking Blue (1969) Bananarama (1986)

Fever Little Willie John (1956) (written by Eddie Cooley & Otis Blackwell under the name John Davenport) Peggy Lee (1958) Maddona (1980s)

All Along the Watchtower Bob Dylan (1967) Jimi Hendrix (1968)

Blinded by the Light Bruce Springsteen (1973) Manfred Mann's Earth Band (1976)

Come Together The Beatles (1969) Aerosmith (1978)

I suspect there are hundreds more hiding in my record collection.

Now, aware of how songs have been passed from one artist to another across generations, I find myself asking:

"Where did this song begin?"

"And how has it traveled?"