Bring me back to music

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

Aldous Huxley

Music infuses every aspect of our lives. Whether we are humming tunes whilst we go about our daily chores or tasks or whether we are singing along with the songs playing on the radio or our iPods. Have you ever caught yourself swaying to music no matter where you are and feeling good about yourself? And have you noticed that when you walk on the street, your walking reflects the beats of the song playing aloud somewhere?  There’s no escaping music, any kind of music, even that which hurts your eardrums or brings an incredulous look across your face or that which instantly lifts you up and makes you smile.

They rightly say that there is a song for every occasion.  You may be feeling low or high and everything in between but just switch on the radio and there would be one song that mirrors your state of mind. Growing up, my parents listened to all the popular artists of their age —Beatles, Paul Anka, Tom Jones, Cliff Richards, Jim Reeves (what would Christmas carols be without him), The Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, the Rat Pack and of course Engelbert Humperdinck. As we grew older we added artists to include all the young girl crushes. The one thing that was banned in my house was Hindi music; my father (and not my mother for a change) felt it would ‘corrupt’ us and make us speak Hindi at home. Little did he know that the radio gifted to my sister was surreptitiously being used to listen to all the latest Hindi songs in the afternoon! Our maid would lock the doors, we would turn down the volume, try and muffle the songs through blankets and pillows and huddle around the little radio and hear the very songs my father hated. Such fun that was!

Over the last few months, I realised that my music world had shrunk. I no longer listened to the radio, I no longer caught up on videos on YouTube or any of the music channels. I didn’t know the names of the artists (in all fairness most of them sound alike) or even who was the best selling artist of the month. Lamenting on the lack of music, I also realised that my music appreciation was restricted to the popular only; I had not expanded my scope of music or even artists at all. That’s when I decided to expand my music repertoire. And you know where I find most of the songs and artists I like? TV series! Laugh all you want; if it introduces me to something nice, I don’t mind the source. These series and some movies have introduced me to some brilliant artists I would never have heard about or beautiful songs that I would never have the privilege to hear.

My must-listen list now includes Yiruma, Vanessa Mae (her I knew about), Rachael Yamagata, Mozella, James Morrison, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, The Civil Wars, Regina Spektor and a lot more.