Sweet soul music

 

The greatest thing
You’ll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved in return

David Bowie, Nature Boy

 

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed that certain ideas get repeated, with stylistic variations, throughout. Themes loop around and reemerge in new forms, taking new shapes.

This ‘repetition’ has been a deliberate attempt on my part to write as if the entire project were a piece of music with multiple movements sharing the underlying themes of love, home, connection and the music of life.

To that end, I have often come back to the same subject several times, from different perspectives. I do this because, in a very real sense, I see life as a musical journey. Music marks all the important moments in our lives. It weaves itself into the very fabric of our experiences.

Who among us do not remember which songs were charting the first time we fell in love, or moved to a new town, or got married? Who seriously can’t remember the songs they played in the car on their first ever road trip or the first song their child ever sang along to?

I have no idea if my vision for this blog has actually translated in any way, but I’ve enjoyed writing with this added dimension in mind. Music – as I’m sure is obvious from my posts – is vital to me. I began my creative life as a musician (well, a vocalist, which is nearly the same thing) and have never lost my fascination for it in all its many forms.

Music is also extremely personal and maddeningly subjective. I have chosen the music I present on here very carefully because, in understanding which music is important to another, we begin to better understand that person.

I’ve opted – somewhat subversively – to lay myself and my relationship bare on this blog. Some would consider that a very unwise move on my part.

And I can certainly understand why. With the amount of unwanted prying that goes on these days already, why stick your head above the parapets?  I guess my answer to that would be, because too many of us are withdrawing further behind our walls every day, too afraid to look out or to be seen, lest the spotlight of public condemnation shine too harshly upon us.

To hell with that. As a very perceptive internet meme once put it:

Dance as if nobody’s watching.

Because they’re not.

They’re looking at their phones.

 

 

 

 

©2016