When I was thirteen I discovered fifties rock n' roll and thus began my love for this wonderful thing we call music and the power it has over a person. When I first heard Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" I felt like I discovered something magical, like a great secret was laid down to me - "this is music, and it's gonna be with you for the rest of your life".
In truth, however, music didn't really become ingrained into my bloodstream until I discovered that not only could I listen to it, I could make my own too. I was into poetry ever since my English teacher in prep school told me that I had a natural talent for it and I would often write poems to express whatever it was I was feeling or thinking, distilling the haywire of pre-pubescent thoughts into small, concise lines.
Hip-hop gave me the opportunity to express myself in music without having to actually learn how to play music. When I was about fifteen my father bought me a keyboard and I'd use the pre-set drum patterns as a beat whilst laying down some incredibly basic bass lines and write rhymes to lay on it.
When I discovered Nirvana it changed the playing field once again - Kurt was left handed, just like I was, and a friend of mine went about teaching me some very basic chords so that I could play some Nirvana tracks. I went from writing rhymes to laying down lyrics, and by the time I was in A-levels I was in my first proper band playing bass.
Ever since then I've been in one band or another, and ever since I've been writing songs.
These days I've found myself listening to a lot of music that I've heard a hundred times before, only this time I find myself really listening to the lyrics. I've heard "Hey Jude" a thousand times before but only recently do I find myself really listening to the lyrics. Lyrics were always what I was into in the first place - poetry, placing the right structure of words together in the right amount to express a specific feeling, an emotion, a thought, and doing so melodically.
It's amazing how music can sometimes just trigger something - how something someone wrote in another place at another time about something that has nothing to do with what you're going through, but somehow you relate to every word, every feeling the track evokes. Other times, a song can trigger something simply because in your mind and in your heart it's associated with some moment, some person, something, anything, and it floods your every pore, for better or worse.
I totally forgot Corinne Bailey Rae's "Like A Star" was on my playlist when it came on at random, and it just made me miss the person I associate that song with a whole lot more.
(Ironically, just as I wrote that paragraph above, "Love Hurts" by Nazareth came on. Either my Winamp player is being sadistic or I should get more mp3's. Or maybe just play "Surfin' Bird" by The Thrashmen on loop.)
