When I was a young child, sometime back in the dawn of time (oh, sorry – the late 60s), one of my favorite songs was by a group named Think. The song was called “Once You Understand.” It was basically a constant refrain providing the background sound for snippets of conversations between parents & teens. In keeping with the times, every parental interchange was angry/uncaring/non-supportive of their child’s latest dream or activity. The refrain got louder as the song progressed.

“Ma, I’ll be home at 11…”
“You’d better be home at 10, or don’t bother to come home at all.”

“Hey, Dad! Did you see my new guitar? I joined a group!”
“Son, there’s a little bit more to life than joining a group, or playing a guitar.”
“Yeah, Dad? What is there to life?”

When I was 10-12, this song was the epitome of everything that was wrong with parents. I had one of the those old K-Tel vinyl compilations that included this song on it. Over the years, the record got lost, and I have periodically scoured the internet hoping to find it. Alas, all searches were in vain.

Today, wandering through my blogroll, I checked out LaShawn Barber’s Corner. LaShawn has recently changed the primary focus of her blogs from politics to music – digital music in particular. She wrote about a new search engine called SeeqPod – kind of a “google” for music. So I jumped over to SeeqPod, and typed in “Once You Understand,” hit search, and crossed my fingers.

Eureka!

I still can’t find it to buy, but at least I can listen to it, and remember singing along at a slumber party 35 years ago. That’s better than nothing.

Thanks, SeeqPod!

h/t LaShawn Barber