I hear music every day. I sing songs in the shower, I hum them in supermarket queues, and I drive my work colleagues mad when I get an "earworm" and sing the same line of a song over and over again. I wear headphones when I'm out walking and I know the music helps me through. I change radio and music channels to hopefully hear something I love that brings back memories of nights out, parties, or just a particular time in my life.
For example "Two can play that game" by Bobby Brown always reminds me of ice skating in Bradford with Cadets in the nineties, and having a friend flirt with the boy I liked, so I requested the DJ play that song! Ah the subtley of the teenage mind. I'm sure Jenny Kyle will remember that story! Might even have been her idea!
Or how about Starship "Nothings gonna stop us now" which always reminds me of the end of the karaoke in the Horse and Jockey on Saturday nights and my girls. I believe we even had our girls first dance at Nicolas wedding, I particularly love the line "And if this world runs out of lovers, We'll still have each other" because I genuinely know that they're always there for me, but enough of that, the girls have had their shout out blog!
I do wonder what makes songs so popular, and I heard someone say, "If you want to know how a clock works, take it apart". Now if I took a clock apart I wouldn't have a flipping clue what I was looking at, but lyrics, they're words, and words are something I know all about. Words have power. Words can start and end wars. Words can break hearts and heal them. With the right words you can make someone beam from ear to ear, or you can curse them to repeat those words over and over again.
So the last few months I have found myself dissecting the words in song lyrics more than ever. I don't know if anyone else ever does this, and I'm pretty sure you probably do. After all there are songs for all occasions, you just have to look on Spotify and there are playlists put together called "Music for Concentration", "Break Up Songs" or my personal favourite "Move on & Don't Look Back".
Sometimes I'll hear a song and think "Wow, that is exactly how I feel!" and then I realise what I already know, and that I'm not alone in heartbreak or tough times. I do know that. I know there are millions of people out there who feel sad for millions of reasons, but this isn't their journey, this is mine.
So for example the new Olly Murs song, "You don't know love"
"You don't know love 'til it tears up your heart
And cuts and it leaves you with scars
You're still feeling
You don't know love"
Poor Olly, or poor songwriter who clearly has some issues with a past love. It's very easy to see where that song would fit into my situation this year...
Then there's the new Clean Cut Kid song, "We used to be in love"
"My body's shaking as I see you walking by
Are we strangers now?
My heart is breaking as the tears fill my eyes
Cause it just reminds me of how We used to be in love, we used to be in love "
So I suspect we can all see a pattern emerging, upbeat music yet with very sad lyrics that make me think about all the horrific things that have happened over the last year.
However, this morning, fresh from a weekend where despite feeling like I had come down with bubonic plague, I had the loveliest time with "the boy" (we'll come back to the fact I call him that another time), I didn't want to go to work, I wanted to just extend the happy feeling I'd had all weekend into my Monday morning, but life doesn't work like that, so I set off into London, turned off Radio 1 because I can't stand Nick Grimshaw and I miss Chris Moyles (though I don't enjoy him on Radio X) and just put my CD on, Alexis Jordan "Happiness" came on.
It just took two lines to make me realise that all the terrible things that have happened had led me to this Monday morning, sitting in my car in traffic, the boys kiss fresh on my lips and with these lyrics making my heart swell... So that's how I'll leave this blog today, with just two lines from that song. Until next time folks. Keep your ears and your hearts open...
"Through strength I found love, In time I found myself in happiness with you"
xxx
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