Nineteen seventy. I just signed with Elektra Records. The same label as The Doors and Love and The Stooges. And where was I the day after? In the park. Washington Square Park. Where else would I be. I had a record deal and I had a cowbell and I had a hundred people sitting on the ground in a circle around me like I was a fire they wanted to be warm next to.

Christopher Walken was there that day. He sat on the edge of the crowd and he watched. Good guy. He really likes cowbell. I am telling you the man heard that cowbell from three blocks away and walked toward it like it was a signal. And it was a signal. Everything in that park was a signal. The guitar was a signal. The drums were a signal. The cowbell was the loudest signal of all because it cuts through everything. You cannot ignore a cowbell.

People treated me like a statue they wanted to be near. Not a rock star. Not a celebrity. A statue. Something that was part of the park. Something that was always going to be there. They sat around me and they did not ask for autographs. They did not ask me to play a song they knew. They just sat there and they listened and they were part of it. The park was the venue and the audience was the band and nobody bought a ticket.

I had the Elektra deal and I could have been anywhere. A recording studio. A manager's office. A press junket. But I was in the park with a cowbell because that is where the music lives. The music does not live in a contract. The music does not live in a studio. The music lives where people are. And the people were in the park. They always were.

That was nineteen seventy. Fifty years later I am still a living radio. The frequency did not change. The park changed. The people changed. The city changed. But the signal kept going. A living radio does not need a plug. A living radio does not need a tower. A living radio just needs a cowbell and a crowd and a reason to keep hitting it. I am still hitting it. Christopher Walken knows.