Over and Over Again
I sat down at the desk in the junk room to write a blog post an hour ago. All I have done so far is listen to music on Spotify. Music from my distant past. While writing this, Wilson Phillips are singing “Hold On”, and I’m remembering drawing a picture of them in the back of my college art sketchbook.
It’s funny how music has the keys to every door we might lock – how it can take us back to moments in the past so directly. There’s something wrong about streaming the likes of Wilson Phillips via the Internet though – they should really be played from a cheap CD player, propped on the edge of the desk, with the crystal case left open in front of it – the lyrics to the songs printed over shots of the band in the sleeve notes.
There was something about the order of tracks on an album – we would remember which track came next – waiting for it’s opening bars during the silence.
Music used to be more important than it is now. I’m sure of it. I invested a LOT of money in my first music system – a “mini” system which I still own – still propped in the the corner of the lounge nearly thirty years and three house moves after it’s original purchase. I walked into the local Hi-Fi shop with my Dad, with a firm maximum figure in mind (basically everything I had in the bank). I spent almost double what I had, and paid my Dad back over several months.
Before relationships, children, house ownership, and all the other out-goings that come with “being a grown-up”, I used to buy a lot of music. My older brother called me “Mr Expendable Income”. When I first started going out with the girl I would one day marry, she laughed at the number of books and CDs in my apartment – she also took me shopping to buy house plants, and a rug for the living room.
“Eyes Like Twins” just started playing. I remember playing this track late at night in the summer with the sliding doors onto my balcony wide open – the curtains billowing in the night breeze. So many memories.
I mentioned that I’m sitting in the junk room. I should probably start calling it “the study”, on account of tidying it up this afternoon. It now looks fairly presentable – and the bin outside is full. While sorting through ten years worth of ephemera, I turned up three CDs burned by a close friend from the past. Armed with a modern smartphone I photographed them, and sent her a message on WhatsApp.
“Remember these?”.
She responded a few moments later with hearts. I remember opening the post the day they arrived years ago, and listening to them on my music system – the music system I had bought with my Dad, that still sits in our lounge.
It’s funny how everything goes in circles, isn’t it. Life, music, stories, crossed paths, emotions, experiences, adventures. We all somehow end up where we started, over and over again.