The sound of dad

0:00Each day on this podcast, we bring you the context behind the headlines. Headlines about President Trump or foreign policy or what's playing out on America's streets. This story is smaller, more personal. It's about one person's search for a voice he thought he'd never hear again. But it moved us, so we wanted to share it. We'll bring it to you after the break. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

0:34It's Consider This from NPR. This story starts with a movie, one that our film critic Bob Mondello just could not get out of his head. It sent him down a rabbit hole, and we asked him to explain. I suspect it's because I saw the period drama The History of Sound, right around what would have been my dad's birthday, that I clocked that it was partly set in 1919, the year of his birth. The movie's about two music students, David and Lionel, played by Josh O 'Connor and Paul Meskel. What else do you know? More than you, likely. Who meet in a New England bar arguing over who knows the most obscure folk song.

1:09How about Silver Dagger? No. Oh, it's such a pretty song. Oh, come on, let's hear it. I don't usually sing like this with everyone talking. Oh, excuse me. Quiet, please. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Now you have to sing. So Lionel sings. Don't sing love songs. You'll wake my mother A spark is struck She's sleeping here right by my side They fall for each other, and after quite a bit of plot goes by, they head into the backwoods of Maine to record folk songs on what was state-of-the-art recording equipment in 1919, wax cylinders, a metal cone, and a diamond-tipped stylus. The sound comes down this big horn here, and it shakes this needle, which cuts a line in the wax.

1:58How does that catch the sound? Put your hand on your throat. Now, huh. Let me take a quick history detour here, because while we now take recordings for granted, the film's characters are astonished at the idea of preserving sound, which had only ever evaporated into the ether. And it's worth noting what a big deal it was. I thought Thomas Edison came up with the basics, but it was a Frenchman who first captured sound waves in the 1850s as lines scratched onto sheets of soot-covered paper. He was studying sound, the way scientists study earthquakes when they record vibrations on a seismograph.

2:35You don't use a seismograph to play the earthquake back, so he didn't either. We can do it now with digital technology. Turns out in 1860, he'd recorded someone singing Eau Claire de la Luna, an 18th-century French folk tune. It took almost two decades before Edison figured out how to record his voice on a strip of tinfoil so it could be played back, a discovery that would give eternal life to accents, inflections, the tiny specifics that make each voice unique. That was 1877, and while that first recording was destroyed when it was played, later that same year Edison re-recorded what he'd said.

3:14The first words I spoke in the original phonograph, a little piece It's a practical poetry. Mary had a little lamb, its priest was quite as slow. Ever the visionary, Edison predicted his new invention would someday be used to reproduce music, preserve family memories, and maybe combine with another then-new invention, the telephone. By 1919, his company had graduated from recording on tinfoil to recording on wax cylinders. That was the year fictional movie characters Lionel and David took their song-preserving trip to Maine, and My Dad was born. And as far as audio recordings, I thought that was where Dad's story ended.

3:54Because although I have spent my entire adult life recording myself and other people, I never recorded him. I feel stupid about that now, but it wasn't really something people did before smartphones. And the iPhone had only just been introduced when Dad died in 2007. So the only audio I had of him was the message he'd left on my work phone. Turns out Edison was right about that. It was Dad's 87-year-old voice, diminished by Parkinson's, cracked, barely audible. Just five words. Bobby, this is your father. Before I picked up and the system stopped recording. I used to play it back after he died so I could hear his voice again.

4:31Then NPR moved to a new building and changed phone systems, and it was gone forever. So a scene in the history of sound caught me up short. Hello, Lionel. And forgive me to fully explain why I have to talk about the end of the film. So if you hate spoilers, maybe hum to yourself for the next minute or so. The movie's student researchers part unhappily at the end of their summer in Maine, and Lionel later learns that David has died. In his grief at losing the love of his life, he tries to locate the wax cylinders they recorded, but he can't for decades. And then when he's in his 80s, having spent his whole life as a musicologist chasing other people's voices, the wax cylinders turn up, and he discovers that on one of them, 23-year-old David recorded his own voice.

5:15I hope this finds its way to you. It seems a gift. You've been very good to me, Lionel. Thank you for coming north. Sorry. I don't know what to say anymore. So David sings to Lionel the song Lionel first sang to him. Don't sing love songs, you'll wake my mother. As I was choking up, I couldn't help wishing that my dad's story had a coda like that. Dad was a top government lawyer for much of his career, so for years I'd searched news archives, libraries, thinking there must be tape of him somewhere, but never found any. Recently I mentioned my search to a friend whose dad was also a lawyer, and she said, Didn't you tell me he once presented a case at the Supreme Court?

6:02They started recording oral arguments back in the 1950s. A couple of hours later, she'd found the recording, beginning with the voice of Chief Justice Earl Warren. Number 65, Weyerhaeuser Steamship Company petitioner versus United States. It was dated February 18, 1963, a few weeks before my 14th birthday. And suddenly, memories from that morning came flooding back of Dad getting dressed for court. He'd rented what he called a monkey suit, which usually means a tux. But this was formal morning dress required of government lawyers in the Supreme Court, black cutaway coat with long rounded tail, dark gray striped trousers, gray vest, shirt with a high starched collar.

6:44I remember thinking he looked like he was going to the Ascot races in My Fair Lady. Anyway, now I had a picture in my head, but I hadn't heard his voice in more than a decade, and that had been his 87-year-old voice. This would be his 43-year-old voice, the one he'd used to help me struggle through algebra homework and cheer me on at swim meets. I hadn't heard that in a full half century. The plaintiff's lawyer spoke first, laying out the case for damages after a steamship collision. And then, 54 minutes in, Chief Justice Warren said, Mr. Mondello, Chief Justice, may it please the court? There was my dad.

7:19The issue in this case is whether the liability of the United States on the Federal Employees Compensation Act... He didn't sound fragile or halting. He sounded young and assured, with a touch of the Bronx I didn't remember from later. He has to have been nervous, and he was clearly reading from notes, but he talked for 49 minutes almost nonstop, and then Justice Hugo Black paid him a compliment. I want to add a note that I think you made a good argument, although I'm inclined to say that you have a number of difficulties in your way. It's a difficult case here. This was a consolation prize. Dad was promoting a losing case.

7:55Two months later, the unanimous decision would go against the government, though I don't recall hearing about that at home. and if he knew he was losing at the time, I don't hear it in his voice. He was never designed to interfere with the rights of third parties. You have literally said that. In fairness, this was the voice he used when he could still answer, to my 13-year-old satisfaction at least, any question put to him. Why is the sky blue? How many angels fit on the head of a pin? I had missed that voice more than I knew. Being able to hear him again, young him, a gift. From Edison and that French guy and all the folks after them who perfected the recording process that's allowing me to talk to you right now.

8:35That was NPR film critic Bob Mondello. This episode was produced by Chloe Weiner and Connor Donovan with audio engineering by Damian Herring. It was edited by Claire Lombardo and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. Thanks to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the work of NPR journalists and help keep public radio strong. Supporters also hear every episode without messages from sponsors and unlock bonus episodes of Consider This. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

9:12It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.