Creativity Quote by Roger McGuinn

The casual shrug of "probably around 1957" is doing more than date-stamping a purchase. Roger McGuinn is quietly placing a marker at the exact moment American pop was rewiring itself, when folk was still mostly front-porch music and rock and roll was still a new problem adults hadn’t figured out how to solve. The 12-string guitar isn’t just an instrument here; it’s a sonic identity, a technology of shimmer. In the late 50s, a 12-string was a commitment to brightness and volume, a way to make one player sound like a small choir. That choice anticipates the signature jangle McGuinn would later weaponize with The Byrds, where the guitar becomes both rhythm and halo.

The intent feels deceptively simple: a memory. The subtext is provenance. McGuinn is staking a claim to an origin story that predates the myth-making of the 60s, suggesting his sound didn’t arrive fully formed with a hit single; it was built early, deliberately, and with curiosity. "Probably" matters, too. It’s the modesty of someone who’s lived long enough to know the archive of the self is messy. Instead of performing certainty, he performs authenticity: the remembered blur of teenage obsession, when a purchase is less a transaction than a life direction.

Contextually, 1957 signals pre-Beatles, pre-folk-rock branding, before "jangle" was a genre tag. He’s reminding you that the revolution often starts as gear talk.