Music.

The more you listen, the more you realise how it defines you as a person; as you age (graciously or otherwise) your taste changes, yet stays the same - shaped by relationships, experiences bitter and sweet; surface ruffled, core calm beyond comprehension as a meandering life takes its toll on your keepity-ups but not your ideals, nor your innate curious child peeking curiously from his round innocent eyes.

I think that is why after enduring an hour and a half of my current eclectic selection of music (Mark that was the exact same cd I burnt for you), my father plugged in the first classical cd he saw (with some relief, I felt?)

Or perhaps he just wasn't used to the words f***ing¹, arse², lying between legs³, none of these being in the good old songs he was familiar with. Or was it an overdose of the usual proclamations of love and teenage-angsty-cries for recognition⁴?

Obviously I only speak from personal experience; myself and random observations of my father aside, my first attempts at stereotyping people according to their music collection (total and ipod/mp3 player/cds in car) seem to have validated some suspicions⁵. And as I've mentioned above, experiences change - I might just throw everything out of the window and believe that humans are fundamentally good and that random thumping of the keyboard (or desecrating good vinyl) is the only euphoric way to go (in style), for there is still time - or I might, just might, write a few years later about how valiantly I tried, and failed, to appreciate the beneficial effects of alcohol, exercise (on the dance floor) and mindless rhythms⁶.

No I did not just come back from a club.



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1."When you first left me, I was wanting more, but you was f***ing the girl next door, what you do that for" - Lily Allen, Smile
2. "Or you can sit on chimneys, and put some fire up your arse - no need to know what you're doing or waiting for, but if anyone should ask" - Damien Rice, Coconut Skins.
3. From the same song as above - "And you can lie between her legs, and go looking for, tell her you're searching for her soul"
4. That's not my name - Ting Tings
5. Eg. A Freemasons-dominated playlist does not augur well for potential friendship and intellectual conversations about life beyond the dancefloor (or sex. Or the difference in alcohol content between a strawberry-flavoured vodka and a Long Island Iced Tea.)
6.Yes remember that grade 3 theory exam you took twenty years ago? The one where you had to draw random notes to show you knew what a semi-quaver on the 3rd line of the treble clef meant? And had to draw a few more to show how many there were supposed to be in a bar? Maybe move them up and down a little to show you had the slightest inkling 4 Bs didn't sound that nice?