I love Nikka Costa.
If you've never heard of her, it's time you did.
Go to you tube, type in the words 'Every one's got their something' and you will hear the sound of my subconscious.
Music is funny like that.
We all have a track that represents certain parts of our psyche, our heartbeat, a pivotal moment in time.
The sound of my soul is Mason Williams 'Classical Gas'.
Without it, I am nothing.
If Wendy Herbert was a piece of music, this is what she would sound like.
The music of my love is Bach's First Minuet.
When I think of love, this is the sound I hear.
I have lived inside music for as long as I can remember, and for someone who can neither read a score, nor play anything beyond a recorder, that is a telling statement.
My earliest memory of music was listening to my mother playing California Dreaming repeatedly on her record player. The song she sang to me repeatedly was Roberta Blacks 'Killing me softly'. I must have been about 4. I still know the lyrics of both songs by heart.
Clearly, one if these songs was her soul, one was her love.
My mother remarried when I was 5, and he was a violent and horrible man.
He didn't so much try and kill her softly with his song as rather dramatically with his fists.
But love him she did.
When they split, I didn't hear either song again.
But I do not tell you this to evoke sadness, quite the opposite.
My thoughts today revolve around the power of music and the concept of having your own personal soundtrack.
A young woman once whispered to me in a confessional tone that she actually had personal soundtrack to her day like it was a sign of mental illness.
Abso-bloody-lutely you have a sound track to your life.....we all do.
Whether or not we hear it, or choose to listen to it, is another matter.
The music is there regardless.
When I was 12 I fell deeply in love with Adam Ant ( laugh all you want) for telling me not to lower my standards whist dressed as a jaunty pirate and commanding not one, but TWO, drummers in the song Prince Charming.
Howard Jones - the ORIGINAL God of Emo- spoke my teenage pain in the song 'no one ever is to blame'.
It is no coincidence that soldiers preparing for battle play thrash metal- or the equivalent- inside their tanks.
It's tricky to fire up the blood to the point of murder under the aural influence of the sound of crickets.
Music is powerful stuff.
Songs are poetry.
Some of it shit.
I may be showing my age, but I personally find it hard to tear my own heart apart with the words " are we an item? Girl quit playin', we're just friends, what are you sayin'..." but I have seen with my own eyes tweenagers fall to the floor with tears streaming down their faces at the mere mention of a song that sorrowfully pleads " I thought you'd always be mine,mine."
" Oh God," they cry " Always and forever Justin".
Of course, here we are talking about the words.
But two of my musical heartbeats are wordless.
What they have in common, I realise, is that they both have a kind of a back story inside them.
They are multi layered musically, and I think this reflects me personally.
I am a tad complex.
Songs like 'Numb' by Linkin Park were there for me when I separated from my husband, but that is a no brainer.
Eltons 'The bitch is back' spoke to another more positive chapter.
Alanis Morresette's 'I'm not the doctor' pops into my head every time I sit across the table from a potential mate like a musical checklist.
If I find myself silently humming Sara Bareilles's 'King of anything' , I just cut to the chase and ask for the bill.
My daughter prepares for a night on the town with Katy Perry's Firework.....even though the plastic bag line makes us all snigger.
I prepare for a night on the town with Mr Mister's 'Kyrie Eleison'......but then I am a little more jaded and I need the cheer squad.
James Taylor also writes me as does Van Morrison, and then there are the days when my whole life is a private conversation between me and Eminem.
When I die, I want them to play The Byrds 'Turn Turn Turn'.
I do not believe in God, but I do believe in the words of Ecclesiastes 3.
Would I have these words with me if they were not set to music?
It's doubtful.
And it may mean nothing to anybody else, but I like the question " What is your personal soundtrack ?".
I would like to think that you read this and think about the music of your soul, your heart, your mind.
And then ask yourself why it is so.
Perhaps , like me, it has something to do with the idea of a life filled with creative balance and beauty...or maybe it's listening to hot guys in harmony.
I love music, it's true.
But I am no artistic purist.
I am also partial to men who are good with their tongues and fingers.
No such thing as an ugly muso.
Just sayin'.
I think Bill expressed it best.
If music be the food of love, play on.
Classical Gas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeHgNqbdBKs
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