I have, I suddenly realized, been listening to this album (it will always be an "album" for me, even as I sit listening to the 2012 digital remastered version. I still have my album) for over 50 years.
Now I play it on my stereo system with speakers in the front and back rooms of the house, at a volume that will drown out the vacuum cleaner when I get it out later. The effect is like walking around inside a set of very nice headphones.
My connection to it is very personal and impossible to explain now. I was 16 when it came out, and I spent a lot of time listening to it with good friends. Leave it at that; it's the emotional/nostalgic connection that matters. Some of those friends are dead, most I haven't seen since my wedding (45 years ago this year), some I'm still in touch with (Hi! *waves*).
It's not great music, or even all that insightful to me now. But it still strikes deep emotional chords. Because of nostalgia? Maybe. It moves me more than Bach's St. Matthew's Passion, though musically the two aren't even on the same planet.
Even now, listening to Judas warn Jesus in the opening song, I'm caught up in it again.
So that's how I'm really observing Maundy Thursday. Same as every recent MT. I probably can do this for one more year before the Lovely Wife retires. She won't let me play the stereo this loud when she's home.
One makes these little sacrifices when one is still in love after 50+ years (what? we didn't marry the day after we met).
Carry on.
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