"My father had all kinds of instruments in the house that he would hide from my mother. He bought them through mail order!"
About this Quote
A domestic caper becomes a miniature origin story: Cassandra Wilson frames her musical upbringing not as solemn destiny but as a slightly illicit joyride. The detail that her father "would hide" instruments from her mother instantly turns art into contraband - not because music is wrong, but because desire has to sneak past household economics, taste, or sheer practicality. It sketches a familiar family ecosystem where one parent is the dream-instigator and the other is the regulator, and the kid learns that creativity often arrives through negotiation, not permission.
The punchline is "mail order!" - an exclamation point of era and access. Before one-click shopping, ordering instruments by post signals commitment: you plan, you wait, you gamble on what arrives. That distance matters. It suggests a father building a private pipeline of possibility into the home, importing new sounds the way others might bring home forbidden snacks. There's also a quiet class narrative here: not everyone has a music store nearby, not everyone can buy big-ticket items openly. Mail order is both workaround and aspiration.
Wilson's tone is key: affectionate, amused, unpretentious. She isn't myth-making; she's demystifying. The subtext is that artistry can start in the messy, funny logistics of family life - with secrecy, surprise deliveries, and instruments multiplying in closets. It paints music not as a museum piece but as a lived, slightly chaotic household habit, which fits Wilson's own work: rooted, improvisational, and allergic to self-seriousness.
The punchline is "mail order!" - an exclamation point of era and access. Before one-click shopping, ordering instruments by post signals commitment: you plan, you wait, you gamble on what arrives. That distance matters. It suggests a father building a private pipeline of possibility into the home, importing new sounds the way others might bring home forbidden snacks. There's also a quiet class narrative here: not everyone has a music store nearby, not everyone can buy big-ticket items openly. Mail order is both workaround and aspiration.
Wilson's tone is key: affectionate, amused, unpretentious. She isn't myth-making; she's demystifying. The subtext is that artistry can start in the messy, funny logistics of family life - with secrecy, surprise deliveries, and instruments multiplying in closets. It paints music not as a museum piece but as a lived, slightly chaotic household habit, which fits Wilson's own work: rooted, improvisational, and allergic to self-seriousness.
Quote Details
| Topic | Father |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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