Don’t you feel it growing day by day?

People getting ready for the new

Some are happy, some are sad

Whoa, we gotta let the music play

These words begin the song “Listen to the Music” by the Doobie Brothers. The tune was written 54 years ago.

Sometimes we can measure how old we are, not by years but by the evolution of technology that can be traced through the devices from which we listened to our favorite music.

I can remember my sister flipping open the metal latches on the lid of her record player. She had a box in which she filed her collection of 45 rpms that included every song that Elvis and Ricky Nelson sang, with an assortment of ’50s doo-wop groups, some Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka and Chubby Checker’s twist dancing records.

“Stop that noise!” Mom would shout at her whenever my sister let the record play past the end of the song. Who would have thought the scraping sound of the needle bouncing back and forth across the record puts me in a time and a place when I was a young boy.

I listened to the Top 10 songs of the week on WABC AM 770 from New York on a very large Philco stand-up radio. It was hard to move the dial to exactly the right spot so the station would be clear of static. When I was away from the Philco, I carried my transistor radio powered by a 9-volt battery and equipped with a pull-up antenna. This radio not only played music, I listened to baseball World Series games on my way home from school.

With money made from my newspaper route, I bought an RCA stereo record player with detachable wired speakers. I inserted a plastic ring inside my 45s so they could drop down on the turn table. My bedroom was filled with sounds that ranged from The Four Seasons and Bread to Creedence Clearwater Revival and Grand Funk Railroad, albums that cost $3.98 at the local record store.

“Turn that down!” Mom shouted when I cranked up the volume so high that the speakers vibrated off my dresser and fell to the floor.

This was not perfect technology for the time period. Records cracked and warped, but with little cash in my pocket to buy replacements, I listened to warbled voices and guitar riffs that skipped past the words of many songs.

I purchased an eight-track player and installed it into my 1973 Plymouth Duster. With the car windows rolled down. I was a cool dude driving around town blasting songs from Steppenwolf, Santana, Cream and the Rolling Stones through the summer night air. A few times, the tape inside the eight-track player plastic container got jammed and I had to carefully fish it back out.

The move from eight track to cassette brought along the same problem with tape getting stuck, but using the eraser end of a pencil, I wound the tape back into place.

Before the advent of cellphones came the invention of the Sony Walkman. I listened to my favorite tunes through headphones as I shuffled down the street heading nowhere in particular.

The boom box came next, a perfect blend of treble and bass that we played so loud outside one day, a crabby neighbor three doors down called my mother.

“She said she’s going to call the police if you don’t turn that thing down,” Mom shouted through the kitchen window screen. Playing a boom box at low volume lost its purpose. Loud and louder was the only way to go.

The auto industry kept pace with music technology. CD players were an added feature that came with every vehicle at extra cost. These shiny discs shaped like little records were a great invention. Just slip them into the slot and sing along.

Now we play music from our cellphones through our car or truck speakers, and there are music apps like Spotify and Pandora that play digitalized oldies and goldies that we used to hear on vinyl and tape.

There has been a renewed interest in vinyl records. My daughter owns a record player and plays Taylor Swift music available in vinyl. Everything old is new again. Soundcheck Records in Jim Thorpe has been selling vinyl records as well as CDs for years and does turntable repairs, too.

No matter what device we use, music has been the lifeblood of civilization for centuries. Nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Without music, life would be a mistake.”

American playwright Tennessee Williams said, “In memory, everything seems to happen to music.” He’s right. I can still see myself as a 17-year-old teenager in Poppy’s Pizzeria dropping quarters into a jukebox to play “Crimson and Clover” over and over until Poppy threatened to throw me out if I played it one more time.

From records, eight track and cassette players to Walkmans, CDs and digitals, how we play our music has been perfected through the evolution of technology. That said, my ears can still hear Neil Diamond singing “Cracklin’ Rosie” that skipped over the word “Cracklin’ ” because of a scratch on the record. I had no problem with that. I sang the word when he couldn’t. I had a lot of scratches on me too back in my much younger days. I had no problem with that, either.

English composer Robert Fripp said, “Music is the wine that fills a cup of silence.”

Tonight, I’m going to pour myself a glass of a “store bought woman” in honor of one of the greatest singers in my lifetime. Here’s to you, Mr. Neil Leslie Diamond. Thanks for your music. Thanks for the memories.

Email Rich Strack at richiesadie11@gmail.com