As I spend my last few month in gainful employment as a health professional I have become quite reflective which is I suppose a sign that I may be getting a little older. As I think about music especially I began to realize how much in recent years I am reminded of certain pieces of music which indicates how important to me the music was and is. For example, when I hear Ichycoo park by the small faces I am transported back to my childhood and being in hospital to have my tonsils out. Such a musical chronicle is a wonderful thing and serves to make for good feeling on the whole. Geographical locations can often spark a positive musical memory. A few years ago I was wandering around Roosevelt Island in New York and as I glanced over the East River The opening piano sequence of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis began playing in my head. I was instantly transported back in time to the day that I bought the album and the same time I bought Relayer by Yes. And when I see the Transporter bridge in Middlesbrough I am instantly reminded of the day I bought Genesis Live at the special price of £1.49 along with Pictures At An Exhibition by Emerson, Lake & Palmer. I still have those LP’s and cherish them.
Last summer I visited Settle in Yorkshire basking in our railway heritage and the quaint innocence of the place. All I could hear playing in my head was East Coast Racer by Big Big Train and remember hearing played live at King’s Place in in London. I remember having a tear in my eye that evening. Very special indeed. Perhaps the biggest memory was invoked a a few years ago when I visited the Mortal Remains exhibition in London at the V&A museum. I thought of the day my mum and dad bought me my copy of Dark Side Of The Moon and a few months later my copy of Wish you Were Here by Pink Floyd in its mysterious black shrink wrapped outer packaging. I could go on forever, though you will be pleased to know that will spare you that boredom. I was prompted to write this piece by a conversation I had with a friend whilst having a wee dram. He was boasting to me just how much better his front room looked than mine did festooned as it is with my not unsubstantial record and CD collections. As he celebrated his liberating exodus of all things vinyl and CD from his home I remarked that the clinical nature of the music and the reproduction of it via his computer held no soul or spirit involved.
One man’s meat eh? The notion of having all the albums I love inside a hard-drive in such a sterile fashion is alien to me. I suppose I send out a message to all those people who may hold such nostalgia with a degree of derision and not fully understand the importance of its existence. You may enjoy clicking on the album or track you want to listen to and enjoy it in its WAV, Mp3 or even FLAC formats, I like to pick the tangible asset from my racks and remember when and where I bought it and in some cases who I was with. As I write I have lifted out the first Greenslade album out of the rack and remember vividly being with my girlfriend Val when I bought it from a little record shop in Glasgow. Happy days!
