As Ever I return to Music

As Ever I return to Music (c)

By  

Michael Casey

Well I’m trying a different word processor so forgive any mistakes, it looks darker like an old fashioned newspaper, with the print, the ink coming off on your fingers. I don’t know if I like it yet, it’s Abi Word you can try it for yourself, as Vangelis plays in the background. Which brings me to today’s talk, as ever I return to Music. I do always return to Music, yes with a capital M, it plays a most important part in my life. As does talking to you, some would say writing is my therapy, the Cards amongst you would say if you read Michael Casey then YOU need therapy, you are all so cruel. The Card was a book by Arnold Bennett and a nice film in 1952 as well, so go read or watch that if you have had enough of me already, have a Guinness too, a Sir Alec Guinness.

So what’s it with music, as a Chinese theme plays through the speakers. Well its the thing that binds us all together, it is a heart beat, the internal tick of time that plays through our lives. I remember this or that or even the other when a certain track was playing, or an entire Barry White double album when me and my lady got acquainted. Music is the rhythm to our lives, the beat, the slow slow quick quick slow as we dance through our lives, or enjoy Barry White with somebody we love.

In times of trouble when your heart is broken maybe after you smashed his Barry White collection because, well just because. Then you retreat to the bathroom or the sofa somewhere to cry. But as these gentle tears fall you just need a bit of loving and compassion. So you play your dad’s Nat King Cole, because Nat was a gentleman, and as those tears fall his voice is brushing your hair, and wiping those tears away, your love may have met its Waterloo, but you’ll survive because you have the eye of a tiger. So you play I will survive, and the winner takes it all, cos your mate is a divorce lawyer, so you smile.

I’ve digressed as usual, but its the winding road that makes the story, the long and winding road that leads us all home. Music is a special place in our hearts, it soothes us, it reminds us. Celine Dion was singing on the radio the night my mother died so now her song Because you Loved Me, has a powerful reminder and effect on us all. I just put it on the speakers and I’m almost crying now as I talk to you, so that is the power in music. I’ll stop and listen to the song.  

We each have a song that makes us happy or brings on the tears, or coaxes us back to the right path. Grannie would bribe us with sweets when we sulked, and we’d listen to the radio with her, so now when we hear that song we think of grannie too. So when she was even older you made sure she had the best DAB radio money could buy so that she was not all alone in the old people’s home.

Music is Love, if you think about it, it really is true, maybe explains why Mick Jagger is still dancing in the street, or why musicians always had groupies, music is a magnet, as is musicians’ large back list. None of us can live in silence. Silence is loneliness, silence is even pain, we all need music in remembrance of love, of kindness, of hope. If ever you have walked through an accountancy firm it’s like walking through the valley of the death, they don’t talk, yet they exist.

So when they leave the office it’s like a fart exploding with noise and relief. To be able to speak, to listen to music, to dance in the street even. We all need to escape into music, to be swept along by the rhythm and the beat. Even if it is only Agadoo, though we may be blind drunk and desperately looking for the toilet, through that big gold handbag will do, Laura Kuenssberg shouldn’t leave it lying about.

Earlier I was listening to a piece by Sky and I imagined a chase through a woods to rescue a child from a kidnapper, the ending to The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker in fact, the undertaker praying he’d not have to bury the little Indian Princess, the butcher vowing to kill the kidnapper, the baker cursing his dog for chasing squirrels. Then as the music plays in my imagination I can see the result, all played out to music, such overpowering music. Yes that is the power of music, in fact Betty’s son writes film music I believe, while I dream my comic novel makes it to the screen, 5 years ago a low budget film producer did take a look.

So as Vangelis plays chariots of fire in slow motion, my dreams are in slow motion waiting to hit the floor and accelerate. So it’s time to finish so there is only one track I can play Windmills of my Mind from the Thomas Crown Affair, or maybe Queen’s I want it all and I want it now…