So I am a sucker for old music and their lyrics. A lot of my childhood memories are of hazy, lazy Sunday mornings listening to music a melancholy father would dust off out of the record collection and then put on the record player. Crackling, crisp, raw music with someone with a beautiful voice wailing out mournful lyrics about a love lost, a love unrequited, a place they longed to return to.
I always used to say that music can make you miss people you have never met and places you have never seen. What those lazy Sundays gave me is an appreciation for all music, I find my music collection bizarre and I often get strange looks for humming along to a Jim Reeves song on the radio, sounding off all the lyrics to a Patti Page classic, or singing Neil Diamond while vacuuming and Kenny Rogers while showering...
Music defines us, but it should never restrict us. As a troubled teenager I entered the alternative world, drawn to the individuality it promised, the melancholy tones of the music, the beat of a rock drum and the twang of an acoustic guitar. But that world disappointed me, it wanted me to only be what it thought was acceptable. To be part of a "goth" clique you couldn't sing along to "How much is that Doggie in the Window", and heaven forbid you actually sang the "woof woof" part of the song. So I toyed with it, but never made it my lifeblood.
Perhaps the lesson I learnt from it all was that one will always be drawn to cliques that are seemingly befitting to where you are in your life, because like herd animals we want to belong, but it is important to never give yourself completely. Be who you are and don't be embarrassed of who that is.
So what is my music to me? It is an expression, an escapism, a place where I can still go to places I have never been, cry for lovers I have never had nor lost, and lose myself in the arms of a world I have never known.
One of the all time classic songs that still bring tears to my eyes is a song called Lace Covered Window, and I can guarantee that the majority of you have never heard of it... This is how it goes:
LACE COVERED WINDOW
The Small Faces – 1967 / The Tidbits – 1968
When you walk through the world all alone
And your dreams went to ashes behind you
Then the tears in your eyes will remind you
Of a view through a lace covered window
Nothing seems very clear anymore
In your world everything is uncertain
How you wish you could pull back the curtain
Just to see through that lace covered window
See the world through that lace covered window
But you'll never know just what life has in store
What's waiting there to greet you
So pull back the curtain and maybe once more
True love is there to meet you
So you'll walk side by side through the world
No more times full of darkness and sorrow
Every day is a bright new tomorrow
When you go through that lace covered window
Every day is a bright new tomorrow
When you go through that lace covered window
Let the sun through that lace covered window
So yes if music be the food of love play on... And enjoy those lazy hazy days when you too look through a lace covered window :-)
