Growing up in a household with two music teachers, English instructor Eric Sayre is no stranger to music. From a young age, he has been surrounded by it, in more ways than one.

“Music was always around my house,” Sayre said. “It was played in the car, I went to music concerts, my mom directed a church choir, I took private lessons, so I think that had to have had an influence as well.”

As a young kid, Sayre was always listening to the radio for new and current music. The radio was easy to listen to and captured his attention easily, which is why he liked it so much. That all changed when his friend introduced Sayre to a band called, The Smiths. To Sayre, the music was a different style, but the lyrics are what really opened his eyes.

“I started following along and it was amazing to me how some of these words really spoke to me,” Sayre said. “I was a shy kid and when Morrissey [the lead singer] talked about having a shyness that was ‘criminally vulgar’  I said, ‘Hey that kind of speaks to me’. […] It was the first time that had ever happened to me.”

From then on, Sayre began his journey through music. He no longer listened to the radio and single hits from artists. He began to venture out to find his own music and listen through whole albums. This way, Sayre could listen to his favorite artists on his own time and not be tied down to the radio.  Although he isn’t against radio music, Sayre just knows it’s not the stuff for him.

Throughout his life, artists have come and gone, but The Smiths and David Bowie are his two favorites. The Smiths started his “music obsession” and David Bowie was one of the gems he found along the way. These two impacted Sayre so much, it started him on a path towards literature.

“With The Smiths, Morrissey references Keats and Yates and Oscar Wilde and A.E. Housman, these great poets, and it made me go, ‘Who are these names? What are these allusions?,’” Sayre said. “I looked them up and started reading some of their stuff so that was a gateway into great literature.”

The more he dug into artists like The Smiths and Bowie, the more he wanted to expand his knowledge of music and other various art forms. This then lead him to becoming the literature teacher he is now.

Although teaching Literature doesn’t provide too much room for music, Sayre ensures his students get a healthy dose of it throughout the year.

“Music isn’t essential to my classroom but it’s present in my classroom,” Sayre said. “I love music and I love sharing that stuff. […] I’ll even share my playlist at the end of the semester for students who want it.”

Now, for those readers wondering what Sayre thinks of modern music, he finds that there’s plenty of good music out there, it’s just harder to find. The deeper a person digs, the more gems you can find, just seek it out.