When I was sixteen I was burying my dad and in the Moslim religion they have these blind blokes singing the Koran by the grave. Really beautiful ululations, acapella, the voices merging and breaking off in MID SYLLABLE!
A coupla weeks later I was at Elaine Jaha’s record store just off Hamra Street and I bought an album of Islam verse. And maybe fifteen years ago I bought a Nusrat Ali Khan album of Islam verse. My dad has been dead a long, long time. In 1979 I went back to visit his grave in West Beirut and it wasn’t there anymore. Blown to pieces as the civil war continued. I paid some of the same blind singers to sing, but a gun fight erupted and that was that.
Five years ago I had a terrible break up with a girl and three years ago i wrote a novel and in the novel, as the most terrible things were happening to the characters, the narrator kept on breaking off to mention the music they were listening to as it happened.
I realized i missed writing about music (I think I’m smarter than everybody around me: doesn’t help anything, and probably, no definitely, untrue, because other people can manage their lives so they are happy, and I can’t do that) and, as my friend Robert Nevin pushed me, I decided to start a music blog.
Here are some girls (the names are true) and the type of music they like:
Marianne: Pop Metal
Noreen: Glam pop
Patricia: Glam rock
Ruth: Folk rock
Jackie: Rap
Nicki: dance
Greta: Indie Rock
For as long as I can remember one of the first things I ask people is “What music do you like?”.
I’d like to write another novel, I can feel my imagination bubbling over…
My Mom loved Ricky Nelson -she’s dead and even if she was alive she wouldn’t remember. But she did.
Another post down.