Sunday Scribblings: Music

Unlike some people I know, music isn’t the be-all and end-all of my existence. I can quite happily spend the whole day at home, working in total silence. But then there are those other days, when I need company, or a rhythm to get my bones moving. If I like a song I will play it hundreds of times until I’m sick of it, then I will never listen to it again. These days I try to ration out portions of music I like, to make the joy in my ears last a little longer. But generally I find music too distracting when I write – and I loathe the radio.

I don’t know which is more potent – the memories our ears find or our noses recall. I would probably have to post every day for a year to share all the songs that punch me in the memory guts, but this prompt has brought a few songs to mind that I’ve spent the last hour listening to, and what a bittersweet meander it’s been.

If we discount the Disney album I received for Christmas when I was nine, then Sade’s Diamond Life was the first LP I ever owned. Your Love is King sounds as curiously fresh as it did back in the 80s (though perhaps a hip eighteen-year-old would disagree). I’m trying to plug into the feelings of being eleven or twelve but nothing is coming – I see my grandmother cooking dinner, I know I have homework to do, but the emotion of that time is missing…

Listening to Lucky Star by Madonna provoked a more visceral reaction. This is the song of hope and sass and hormones. I can see her dancing around in cut-off black leggings and rubber bangles and I remember my fingerless lace gloves and the cerise-coloured boots I wore with leg warmers. I remember going to see Desperately Seeking Susan when I was fourteen or fifteen and thinking she was the coolest woman I had ever seen in my life. Will Britney fans have the same memories when they’re in their 30s? I think not.

Hearing the first harmonic bars of David Sylvian’s Answered Prayers found me sitting in Madeleine’s flat at the age of twenty, smoking joints and drinking beer. I knew my ex was the man for me when he said this was his favourite Sylvian track. Then I indulged in the powerful voice of Me’shell Ndegeocello, singing The Way. The moment she started singing I was mesmerized, that smoldering night in Italy when Maurizio played us her CD as we drank Limoncello and espresso; I brought home a taped recording of her album and played it over and over until the tape broke. I don’t think there’s a single song of hers I dislike.

And then the memories started to overload. I hate Dido with a passion but White Flag always makes me think of my love. We’re in his car driving home and this song comes on the radio: ‘I’m in love and always will be’ he’s singing along with the chorus, out of tune, but the words are repeated to me and I laugh and squeeze his thigh as he changes gear… Then I played the song I have listened to over and over since he left and I realised I can listen to it now without the tears coming: ‘I taste the air around you and I feel brand new/ come fill my senses up with you/ you’ve turned the jaded into new/ come fill my senses up with you/ life would be senseless without you’. Jericho by the Weekend Players, a hypnotic song, one that carries my heart in its tune; when my tear ducts were blocked, when I couldn’t get the emotion out, I played this song and let myself wallow. Sometimes you have to blast through the centre of the pain to make it through to the morning.

So, which song should finish off this blogging mix tape? My favourite song of all time (Good Times by Chic)? The most recent song I downloaded (You Make Me Feel by Milosh)? I’d certainly have to include Take it From Me by The Weepies and Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez, but the most important song is Wedding Day by Rosie Thomas, the song that started this blogging adventure. If Denise hadn’t felt compelled to write about the memories the song triggered for her that day, and if I hadn’t felt compelled to leave her a comment, then our friendship wouldn’t have been ignited and I wouldn’t be here now, writing this melodious Sunday Scribbling.