Here comes the Sun

Those who can’t sing, find a song to love. And eventually, find someone to love the song with.

Tell me you haven’t fallen in love with someone who said ‘take a sad song and make it better’, when you were sulky. Or, ‘there will be an answer, let it be’, when you felt overwhelmed. Or ‘I want to hold your hand’, on that very first date. Or ‘you give love a bad name’, when you had a fight. Or ‘wish you were here’, when you were missed. Or ‘we’ll be counting stars’, on a beautiful moolit stroll. Or ‘you are my fire, the one desire’ as a cheesy pick-up line. Or ‘when you held my hand, I knew it was now or never’, just after your first kiss. I mean if someone talks in song lyrics – what else can do you? Except say ‘Love me do’ and feel ‘on top of the world’. Because ‘sweet child of mine’, you’ve just landed on your ‘stairway to heaven’ – and here on its ‘rock n roll damnation’. You’ve found your ‘T.N.T’. So you ride out of the sunset, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel – and suddenly, ‘you find it hard to believe, you’re in heaven’. Here, everything is ‘larger than life’ – with ‘tequila sunrises’, ‘blazes of glory’ and ‘high hopes’. You are ‘stuck in a moment’, dreaming a dream of ‘strawberry fields forever’. For effect, you might want to sing it — ‘staw-berry fields…for-ever’.

‘Little darling’, ‘welcome to the jungle’ of song lyrics.

A funny story. A few weeks ago, I met a friend for coffee and he was really keen on me trying a certain coffee blend at Starbucks (and my fixation for Hazelnut Latte is legit). So, after a lot of deliberation, I succumbed, and to my surprise – loved my new coffee. So he said to me ‘Isn’t it good?’. And I said ‘Norwegian Wood’. He looked at me as though I belonged in an asylum. But, you feel me, yeah?

Do you believe in using songs to say things?

The language of lyrics from some of the most classic songs of all time, is a language that is holy to only some of us. And hence, we say things like ‘keep me stuck in your head like your favourite tune’ or ‘let’s keep each other on repeat like our favourite song’ or ‘no matter what people think of you, always keep singing your own song’, or better still – ‘find the one who hears your music the same way you do’. We have an innate weakness for song and music references in our conversations. As strange as that sounds – we are a certain type of person. And only our type gets the magic of our weirdness. We feel elated when we quote a rather unheard lyric from a bygone era, mid conversation, and the listener knows our song or responds with yet another lyric reference from the same song, artist, album, or era. We trip on lyrical comebacks for all the musical words we sprinkle around us like sweet, rainbow confetti. We feel united with lyric lovers on our frequencies of love for all things music – and although we may not necessarily be able to sing to save the world – we selflessly drop lyrics like fairy dust wherever we go. For us —your energy is the song you save in your heart, your aura is the colour of the melody that resides in your soul, your spirit is the light in your eyes when you hear the songs that made you.

We scan souls based on their music preferences and may sometimes say rude things like – If you don’t love Floyd, then talk to the hand. But, what we really mean is that your world is a little less magical because you have not seen life with real music in it. We feel almost a bit sad for you — like watching you grow tinier and hazier from the window of a moving train — you, the passenger that decided to get on the next train only because you thought this one’s not for you. But that’s the thing about these trains — some are made for every single human on this planet — taking you on journeys you’ve never been on before — journeys that will stay with you for time immemorial, journeys you will want to take time and again, and journeys that will mould you into letters of love, stardust, dewdrops, rainfall, sunsets, moonshine and everything nice. And although song lyrics may seem only like words strung together as sea pearls in a necklace, when brought to life by the right voice, they become that priceless piece of vintage beauty on the slim, beautiful collar bone of a woman from a place of ethereal goodness.

And that is exactly what music does for me. I don’t sing or play an instrument, or understand the technicalities of good music. All I know is that some songs have taken me through the roughest, darkest days – transgressing time, lost loves, hopeless evenings and lonely nights. And then there are those that bring flashes of sparkling joy flooding back even after months, years, decades – all I need to do is close my eyes, plug and play. I cannot describe it, define it or understand it – but my connection with music is like a dreamworld come to life in 3D – I can be where I want to be, with who I want to be, doing what I want to do for those 3 minutes of that song. And in those 3 minutes, I can be lost and I can be found again.

I feel grateful to be surrounded by people and voices that resonate with my synergies – lovers of the ‘feeling called music’. I feel blessed to be a 30+ today because as the younger folk at my work place often tease me for saying ‘Back in the day’, it is true that ‘Back in the days of rock n roll, music was real.’ And I’m glad that timeline was ours to cherish.

Peace, love and music to all.

Until next time,

XOXO