All tagged Music With Meaning
Well, I didn’t take it seriously, took the mickey out of the choir leader incessantly and fell for her best friend.
Joining that choir was an eventful decision, if ultimately rendered embarrassing by my lack of tone, musical ability or willingness to play within a team.
It also eventful because another member of the choir was the only other girl I’ve ever dated.
Perhaps it was the time I saw it, perhaps it was my low expectations, perhaps it was the hunger-making scent of whatever he had in that brown paper package, but either way, I was, all of a sudden, very excited to see Paris.
It also immediately takes me back to that musty, timber-lined hall.
The rows of uncomfortable, folding vinyl seats.
The gold lettering on the plaques hanging up near the windows.
The dusty, aged blue curtains on the stage.
Then I noticed that the sun was beaming in, lighting the board and warming my hands.
It was that kind of warming sun you get in Melbourne this time of year - after the gloomy desperation of winter but before the vindictive burn of summer.
It felt good, the moment felt good, life felt good.
There's no traffic.
The phone doesn't ring.
This time of year you get to see the sunsets and Melbourne, like most cities, is much, much prettier in a sunset.
You have no 'next thing' to get to.
So you can take your time driving home, driving with the window down and the music up.
And this is the magic of Kelly’s stuff, isn’t it?
Our lives – all of us – track along, filled with times and events and things and stuff and interactions and conversations and arguments and sights, sounds and smells.
Most of us, the overwhelming majority, don’t notice these points along our personal timelines. They’re not notable, they just are.
Paul Kelly notices them, though.
I do think, though, that it created – through some weird group alchemy – a minor bond between all of us that were there.
It’s not a strong connection like you hear other people (footballers, often) talk about, but more like a soft shadow burnt into part of our histories.
A shadow that’s fading over time as our lives move on and change and become more complex and compressed.
This is the antithesis of corporate music drafted in committee and recorded by disinterested observers.
Meaning and emotion drip from every note, chord, riff, drum fill, cymbal tap and vocal quiver. And that meaning is clear:
To love is to be vulnerable; and sometimes that vulnerability means you’ll get hurt.
People will let you down, and you won’t always understand why.
