There is something magical about the way music can transport you back in time, make you feel like your 10,20 (or more if applicable) years younger, how it reminds you of a smell, a taste, a love, a place and oh, the people. The warmth of that feeling can hold you longer than the last note. And then of course the bitter reality that music can conjure also. That stomach wrenching reminder of a lost one, a moment in time when life was not so colourful and the dark cloud of sadness that the words, tune or tone harks from. And on the opening chords you want to pull the plug, run out of the room for fear that the memory will take you back to a time of endurance.
Mine vary from songs that they played at a mid-year Christmas breakfast where our entire school listened to the radio in a church hall one cold winter school day(....why this memory sticks I'm not sure!), to the jubilant music at the Rugby World Cup Final in Auckland, the Meatloaf album that was stuck in our car tape player for 2 years or the songs played in cars when we used to drive around and around and around as teenagers in my home town (the Country Music Capital of New Zealand), the songs my sisters played on vinyl during the 80's and the CD's my brother would thrash on his ghetto blaster in the 90's or the songs played in clubs during University where I had my first taste of dance music, the songs we sung in school assembly (not just hymns - we used to sing Kenny Rogers, The Beatles and Queen thank you!), and those we sung at school variety performances - My personal favourite from this time was "schools out" by Alice Cooper performed with all my fellow Prefects (teenagers trying to be ironic- classic), although watching my old mate Jonah do Baby Spice was pretty memorable! These school performances were a time of bonding and unity I don't think I could ever replicate outside of a choir. The curiosity I had with British Music -caused on arrival with the number one hit "Amarillo" - it would take me 5 years to discover it was a charity hit not a country moving back in time. Performances I have experienced in Parks, Stadiums, Music Halls and Town Halls, Pubs and Clubs, in cities, towns and villages around the world, where each song could be enjoyed amongst the masses or savoured by the seated. The songs my father played as he taught me to do the waltz in the kitchen standing on his feet and Karen Carpenter albums my Mum so enjoyed. The songs my old flatmate used to write and the tinkling on a piano with Mrs Morgan. What now feel like theme tunes to weddings, funerals and parties.The songs with a persons name or feature in them that just reminds you "fat bottom girls they making the rocking world go round". Songs gifted on mixed tapes by old boyfriends. And the defining moment I realised I'd been in the East for so long that I became a connoisseur of Call To Prayer - the singer at evening prayer in Bombay suburbs of Bandra is exceptional.
All of these songs cover genres from Rock to Classical, Funk to Traditional, Metal to Dance, Pop to Drum'n'base, R&B to Trance, Country to Church Hymns, Folk to Reggae. And its the variety that I love. Almost casting a genre on some memories not just a single song, album or artist.
As I roll up my bed roll, stuff in my sleeping bag and pack my hand sanitiser, I'm holding tight for yet another experience of the "worlds greatest music festival",Glastonbury. To see some of the artists who inspired these memories, caught my heart and make me swoon, artists that have been with me in times of great joy and great personal sadness, up the highest of mountains and in the desserts of Africa, on boats, ferries, planes and trains, artists who have eaten with me, slept with me, showered with me, run with me, danced with me, driven with me and now they will stand before me.
Come rain, hail or shine I know it'll be emotional - and I will think of many of you from Worthy Farm, cocooned in a memory of our time, in my time.
Mine vary from songs that they played at a mid-year Christmas breakfast where our entire school listened to the radio in a church hall one cold winter school day(....why this memory sticks I'm not sure!), to the jubilant music at the Rugby World Cup Final in Auckland, the Meatloaf album that was stuck in our car tape player for 2 years or the songs played in cars when we used to drive around and around and around as teenagers in my home town (the Country Music Capital of New Zealand), the songs my sisters played on vinyl during the 80's and the CD's my brother would thrash on his ghetto blaster in the 90's or the songs played in clubs during University where I had my first taste of dance music, the songs we sung in school assembly (not just hymns - we used to sing Kenny Rogers, The Beatles and Queen thank you!), and those we sung at school variety performances - My personal favourite from this time was "schools out" by Alice Cooper performed with all my fellow Prefects (teenagers trying to be ironic- classic), although watching my old mate Jonah do Baby Spice was pretty memorable! These school performances were a time of bonding and unity I don't think I could ever replicate outside of a choir. The curiosity I had with British Music -caused on arrival with the number one hit "Amarillo" - it would take me 5 years to discover it was a charity hit not a country moving back in time. Performances I have experienced in Parks, Stadiums, Music Halls and Town Halls, Pubs and Clubs, in cities, towns and villages around the world, where each song could be enjoyed amongst the masses or savoured by the seated. The songs my father played as he taught me to do the waltz in the kitchen standing on his feet and Karen Carpenter albums my Mum so enjoyed. The songs my old flatmate used to write and the tinkling on a piano with Mrs Morgan. What now feel like theme tunes to weddings, funerals and parties.The songs with a persons name or feature in them that just reminds you "fat bottom girls they making the rocking world go round". Songs gifted on mixed tapes by old boyfriends. And the defining moment I realised I'd been in the East for so long that I became a connoisseur of Call To Prayer - the singer at evening prayer in Bombay suburbs of Bandra is exceptional.
All of these songs cover genres from Rock to Classical, Funk to Traditional, Metal to Dance, Pop to Drum'n'base, R&B to Trance, Country to Church Hymns, Folk to Reggae. And its the variety that I love. Almost casting a genre on some memories not just a single song, album or artist.
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| Reading that MJ had died while at Glastonbury so many mixed memories of MJ and this day of music |
Come rain, hail or shine I know it'll be emotional - and I will think of many of you from Worthy Farm, cocooned in a memory of our time, in my time.
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