music in my life

a friend used to wonder, why is my choice of listening pleasure stuck in the 80s? reminiscing is fine but you should move on, you should listen to all the new songs out there, i was told. i feel like an old grandma knitting away in her rocking chair whilst the gramophone is playing nearby. i do listen to new music, whatever is playing on the radio but more often than not, i find myself switching to 105.7, the music for oldies. this is not where you insert your tease of my age, so please do resist.

i have been ruminating, why is it that i love the music of the 80s so much? is it as my friend said, it brings us back to our lives back then, simpler, easier, and looking back, always rosier? does it raise some memories from way back then, some beautiful frozen picture panels of our lives? a certain song attaching itself to a certain specific part of the past, like the first slow dance, the first kiss, the first date.

for me, it's nothing like that. when i was listening to music way back then, i was listening to music. not engaging in any other activities that would have brought back sweet memories. if i were to close my eyes when the radio played my favourite song, i can see in my mind's eye the me that was so long ago, sitting by myself in the room as the music played. is it just my infamous lousy memory or is it just a very lonely past, i don't have many memories that are associated to songs. some, but not many. the first time i slow danced with a boy - whom i didn't even have any romantic feelings for, i can't remember what was playing in the background. the second time, many many many years later - with another boy whom i bordered on dislike, i still paid no attention to the music. perhaps it was the companion, perhaps it was the ambience. it was neither romantic, nor worth remembering. all i remember is silence. are my memories mute? in which case, is it in colour? i can't remember the colours either. strange.

despite the lack of attachments of memories to the music, i am strangely attached to the music. for a while i didn't understand why. now i do. i like the music for its familiarity. for being a part of what i was, what i am now and what i will always be. for being a part of my past, my present and my future. that i find is the rarest of thing in this world that changes in the speed of light. friends that you cannot hold on to through the test of time. things that constantly innovate and update before you can even familiarise. life perpetually changing at a heady pace, before you can stand still for a moment and immerse in its warm embrace, the only constant thing being change.

i like the music of my past because it is the one thing that will always be there, the one part of my life that will not change and will be there when i need its familiar comfort. when the words in the air mirrors that which pass my mouth without even making a conscious effort to remember , it is like an old friend.