It’s a sunny weekend morning. I’m in a St. Helena coffee house, deep into the Sunday paper. I’m unraveling the life of a hard-living writer who was younger than me when he died.

There’s a cacophony of sounds in the background. Seniors chattering. A child squalling. I’m oblivious. I read on.

Then, wham. I’m blackjacked by a snatch of lyric penetrating the aural clutter: “The taxi is waiting, he’s blowing his horn. Already I’m so lonesome I could die.”

I shiver, my heart skips a beat. I’m hearing Peter, Paul and Mary singing “I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane.”

It’s 1969, New Brunswick, N.J. It’s the pre-dawn. My roommates are asleep. I’m playing Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Album 1700” at a low volume on the record player before heading out for my job in the campus cafeteria.

It’s always the same cut: “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” I play it over and over.

The lyrics slay me, although I can’t say exactly why. Unlike the singer, I’m not leaving a lover in the early morn, unsure when I’ll return. I have no life experience that would justify the lines, “There’s so many times I’ve let you down, so many times I’ve played around, I tell you now, they don’t mean a thing.”

And I’m not leaving on a jet plane. I’m going to hoof it through the empty streets of downtown New Brunswick.

Still, “Leaving on a Jet Plane” shoots me through and through with heartbreak. I can’t get enough.

Listen, I say to Cheryl, who is across the coffee house table, reading the Sunday paper with me. That’s my song. It clobbers me every time.

Cheryl has things to say about “I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane” — she liked it so much as a 14-year-old, she learned to play it on the guitar — but I wave her off. Mary Travers is still singing.

When the song ends, I can hardly speak. I’m a puddle of nostalgia. I’ve traveled back in time, revisiting the me of 40 years ago, the me that post-college life — the jobs, the marriages, the kids, the responsibilities  — have rendered a faint memory.

I feel acutely young, a quivering mass of yearning. Putting down the newspaper, I have to compose myself.

My college years were dotted with significant music moments. I can tell you where I first heard the Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love” — from a booming juke box in The Ledge.

Returning from ROTC summer camp, I remember entering my apartment to find my roommates zonked out on the just-released “Sgt. Pepper.”

Music hardly works that way on me anymore. It comes out of the radio and quickly evaporates, leaving me untouched.

If I’m now a dried-out cinder for whom music is but a minor life ornamentation, 17-year-old Jonathan is the polar opposite. He’s a pulsating, plasmic mass of rhythms. Music is not peripheral to his life. It’s center stage, the main show.

I ponder Jonathan. How can music mean so much that you live it and breathe it and play it, sometimes to the exclusion of my holy duo, food and sleep?

Even in my prime, I was never a music animal like Jonathan, but music counted for a whole lot more than now. What happened?

Yes, kids, life does a number on you.

When we ride together, Jonathan and I always play the radio. KFOG mostly. Lots of good songs, some better than others. Rarely anything stop-the-car great.

Then it happened. Earlier this year, wham, right between my ears: The Killers’ “Human.”

“Are we human or are we dancer? My sign is vital, my hands are cold, and I’m on my knees, looking for the answer. Are we human or are we dancer?”

Muscle control weakened, tears welled up. Like a powerful pharmaceutical injected through my ears, the song had its way with me.

When “Human” ended, I paused to regain composure, then turned to Jonathan. What the heck was that?

He was familiar with the song. Kids at school either like it or hate it, he said. The significance of the lyrics is subject to debate. Everyone has their own interpretation.

From just one listening, I had mine. I was sure “Human” revealed profound truths about the meaning of life.

I’ve downloaded the lyrics and given them a hard ponder. Essentially, it boils down to this: We may be human, but we can aspire to more. To be dancer, say.

“Dancer” is a powerful code word. Get it?

Kevin can be reached at 256-2217 or Napa Valley Register,  P.O. Box 150, Napa 94559 or kcourtney@napanews.com