If Music Be The Food Of Love

If Music Be The Food Of Love ©

By

Michael Casey

 

If Music Be The Food Of Love wrote Shakespeare, he was right, Music Is  The Food Of Love.    A boy can get up close and personal if he has the right mood music. A girl’s heart will melt if he has the right song on his hifi, or should I say IPod. Music touches us, it makes our hearts beat faster, just as a bit of flesh revealed makes our eyes dilate.

In the interests of balance should I reverse the sentence, a boy’s heart will melt, or a gay lover’s heart will melt etc. Let’s  take that as read, Love does Conquer All as my mum once encouraged me, and if you look at my family photo you’ll see IT DID.

Now Music has been a big thing in my life, since 1974 to be exact. How can I be so exact? Well my brother went off to be a coal miner then, that was his gap year before they were even invented. He did go off to a very good University the year after, the very best to be exact. So while he was a miner I was all alone in the homework room. To break the silence I listened to a radio while I did my homework. So love of music while I struggled with Latin homework, Latin is a form of torture but it does focus the mind, I’m pleased to say I got a B. Remember the Ablative Absolute is like, say, remember the Alamo.

Years later I used to go to a Folk club and see 3 bands every week. Later still I went to a Jazz club, mainly Trad Jazz, so I know a good or bad musician when I hear one, and I know a good voice when I hear one. If ever I develop cancer it will be because of all the years of smoke while I listened to music. The idea for the Jazz band and Jazz funeral in The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker came from all those years of music.

I love my radio so much, it was and still is a constant companion. Though before I got my own house I also listened to plays on Radio 4, I can spot one from 100yards now, 20years of listening to Radio 4 before I took up a pen myself. But it’s music I want to tell you about. Music is a reservoir of emotions, past and present. Elvis brings back memories, why? My dad discovered Elvis in his 60s, there was a series of Elvis films on TV over Christmas so my dad watched them all and was impressed. If there was a good song on the radio dad would raise the volume and then lower it again when the other rubbish returned. Dad would be shaving in the kitchen because the bathroom was too cold and he’d come in the living room all lathered up and he’d say he/she has a good voice.

Me, I’m very eclectic in my tastes though Regaee does leave me cold, its washing machine music the same repeat motion/noise as a washing machine. Yes I know a whole avalanche of criticism will fall on me, but as Joanne used to say “we are all different” so let’s agree to disagree. What’s amazing nowadays is that lots of the music I remember is 40years old. I was young when I heard Eric Clapton for example because  of bigger brothers, so now it makes me realise I’m getting old, being called “grandpa” by teachers when I do the school run is one example. I tend to listen to Magic radio on my dab radio, because the music is good and they don’t prattle over the songs. But I still am amazed at the age of some of the music, but it’s the music that’s old, NOT ME, I still feel 20 in my head.

Today Lady Gaga is Queen, she has a great voice and is very pretty, ok very sexy. Her videos are fun and  she seems to know how to stay ahead of the music and other press. You get so many wanna bes who if you listen to their voice really are 2^nd rate, 1 hit wonders. I  suppose the test is, if you listen to your dab radio and hear a voice do you want to open your eyes and poke your head out from under the duvet. If the voice is good then you will because the dab text will tell you who is singing. On some of the  tv talent shows the voices are terrible, but when you hear a good voice you can  press record on your Sky+ remote. If my dad was still alive he’d raise the volume on the radio to listen to Lady Gaga, if he saw her  he might think she was a modern Dorethy Lamore in a Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Road Movie. But Gaga is already making her own Road To movies and they really are a modern form of Art.