Easy Listening

Easy Listening

By michaelgcasey

BBC4 had a great programme tonight, Easy Listening. I don’t know about you but for 20years and more radio was my best friend, Radio4 and Radio2. It all started when my brother went to work at a coal mine, after a year he went to Cambridge, he had a gap year before they were even invented.

So there I was in 5th year with an old Bush radio for comfort as I studied for my O Level, radio was a constant companion. I listen to Radio2 and Folk weave and all manner of programmes, I also heard a stack of Radio 4 stuck. The Bush radio did wonders for my intellect  and it was a great comfort as I really missed my brother.

Easy listening from the radio, plus in later years having a record player and then a very cheap hifi, it was just a record player with 2 speakers, but it was so soothing. John Denver, The Eagles, Jean Michel Jarre, and anything else with a nice album cover, all of them  were my companions, especially when I was in between jobs.

Music is soothing and a great companion, listening by headphones is a different experience too, if you haven’t tried it then try it right now, steal some headphones from your teenagers. My own kids are still too young to have headphones, mind you tonight my girls were really enjoying their Blik radio as they both read JacquelineWilson books.   I had bought the radio for myself but instead I donated it to my girls and I kept the old ugly looking DAB radio.

Music is good for the soul and you can submerge yourself in music, just as you can wallow in a hot bath for an hour, easy listening like Smooth Radio, Real radio used to be great until it went off air. I just adored the music with no ads annoying me, that’s what easy listening is all about, its like the bubble from bubble bath that cover and sooth at the same time. Easy listening is like a good massage given by an expert, or if you cannot get a Chinese doctor, buy a book and get some oils and donate it to your wife/boyfriend/girlfriend or whoever and just lie there with the music playing your favourite Carpenters track, or Adele.

Easy listening should almost send you to sleep, which is good because its so relaxing. My journey started with a Bush radio and now its a DAB radio or my computer with nice Logitech speakers, if music be the food of life play on.