music

Do You Remember? (Teenager of the 90’s)

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Times change. And so does the music. But more than that, it breaks your heart- like The Bluetones singing where did you go? Or Garbage singing stupid girl, or Whale singing happy in you. I got old. And so did you. But we didn’t really. It’s only on the outside. If we didn’t look in mirrors, we wouldn’t remember that we got older. The music though…it likes to take us back. It grins and teases. Takes us by the elbow whispering; do you remember?

Do you remember fish and chips in the car? The car-park at the beach. We never got out because we didn’t want to be around other people. Let them have the beach. We had the music. It was always us and the music. We still do it now; leave the windows rolled down in pride. Yes, this is good.

I am older, and so are you. Jaded. More cynical. You didn’t used to worry about anything, and you still don’t, but you don’t care either. The world proved you right. I got older, but I fight hard not to get old. I insist the child in me remains loose. Vigilant at all times. In charge of my soul. No mortgage or nine to five for me. No hamster wheel or human treadmill. Music makes everything better.

Do you remember mix tapes? Personalised for the one you loved. But it wasn’t just about love or loving them, it was about telling them what music you loved, letting them in on a secret, telling them what music they should love too. I wish I’d kept them all, but times moved on. I can still see your neat handwriting, black biro, letters perfectly formed. I can picture you in my head; lying on your bed where you kept the hi-fi just above your pillow, so that when I slept over, the music was right there. I can see you writing out the songs one by one. Telling me who I should love. You gave me The Stone Roses and I will love you forever for that.

Do you remember love letters? Passed back and forth. Lyrics and hearts in smudged biro dotted around the edge of A4 lined paper. Ten Storey Love Song – I built this thing for you.

Do you remember The Beach Boys? First music we played in our first home. I remember a younger us in a teenage bedroom; wouldn’t it be nice if we were older, then we wouldn’t have to wait so long? But we didn’t have to wait long at all to get older. That happened in between songs.

Music is our connection. It links me to you and to everything that I see in my head when I look back. To every song I hear there is a scene, a memory, a feeling. Gomez singing get myself arrested after you did get yourself arrested. A thousand songs in a thousand moments in cars, bedrooms, clubs and festivals. Me and you. Cider and Hooch and Two Dogs. Empties lined up on the bedroom window sill, curtains blowing in the wind. Select magazine on the bed. TFI Friday on the telly. Ocean Colour Scene and Kula Shaker and Cast and Supergrass and Portishead and Massive Attack and Tricky, and I always preferred a slow sad song, and you always preferred fast and happy. Then you’d write me a little note before you left.

You can be yourself when you find the right music. Remember that? Remember that it was our time. And its so funny now when we find it again; when we find ourselves in the record shop, not drawn to the vinyl that was before our time, but to the cds in the flimsy plastic cases, to remembering how cool they seemed compared to tapes, until they scratched and jumped and jittered. The artwork, the song list, the lyric sheet. In an instant, we are excited again, worries forgotten, age meaning nothing. It’s just you and me and the music, set free, eyes wide, let loose, fingers flicking amidst exclamations of ‘we had that one on tape’, ‘we had that one but it got scratched’, ‘I’ve still got that one but it doesn’t work’, ‘do you remember this one?’ For a few moments its perfect joy.

Then in the car on the way home. Everything is made better by music, whether its new or old. Smiling without knowing that we are. We’ll be high on it for days. Classic finds. Cheap and cheerful. Would rather spend money on music than anything else. And I look at you and I think do you remember that you’re the same as me? That we see things they’ll never see?

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Too Like You

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Memories evoked by music are a bit like dreams sometimes…

You can feel the emotion, there is no avoiding that. That is the thing that hits you over the head, blind sides you and stops you in your tracks. Christ yeah…I forgot about that song…I forgot about that. As well as the emotion there is something visual there, something tapping at the corners of your mind, something stealing into your vision, a bright flash that fades again just as quickly as it came. Like a dream you try to hold onto it, try to hold it still for examination but the more you try to see it and explain it, the more elusive and teasing it becomes. It’s like it does not really want to be caught or defined.

It’s all you can do not to cry, or just sigh. It’s fleeting, like everything in life, here one minute and gone the next, just like the moment itself, when it happened all those years ago. I don’t want to keep getting older and forgetting all of these things.

Money Mark singing Tomorrow Will Be Like Today. That was a new CD you bought over, and it was a small garden, enclosed by tall panel fences. The smell of yesterdays barbeque lingering in the air with cut grass. My knees pulled up onto the plastic garden chair. A crack in one leg playing on my mind. Too Like You. Hand In My Head. Makes me smile and think of you.

Did I become more like you, or did you become more like me?

I used to be the negative one, the worrier, the anti-social, and you used to be the smiler. Sandy haired and loose limbed, you used to say it all of the time; don’t worry. Don’t worry. Don’t ever worry about anything.

But that is not you now. Now I am the one who encourages you to see the light and to smile. Now I am the one who says don’t worry, and you are the one reluctant to go out there and deal with people and time and life.

You rubbed off on me. That was the way it happened. From moments like that, always with a new album playing in the background. So much of our story has a soundtrack. That’s why it happens like that when I hear a song, when it takes me back. Bang and I am young again. Not sat in the car staring solemnly at the rain on the window while you nip into the shop to buy some bread and milk.

How easily we grew up. It’s not really fair the way it happens like that. It takes you by surprise, because you are never paying attention as the years creep up. Then suddenly a decade has passed, and then another. It’s sometimes like we are still back there, existing back in time. We are two lots of people. Them and us. Then and now.

I am too like you now because you got inside my head.

You say that tomorrow will be like today and I say that sometimes you are wrong. I can’t remember what happened to that day. How did it end? Where did we go? What did we talk about and laugh about? I can just remember the feel of the plastic chair under me and the wobble, the give, from the crack in the leg. I can just remember the music, and that it was summer. I can see your face and the way you always smiled about everything and I can see you walking in with CD’s in your hand. I miss us.

My Music Memories

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

So many, where to start? Don’t try to organise them, just go!

Travis; Why Does It Always Rain On Me? Glastonbury, no idea what year, beautiful clear blue skies, they start singing this and it starts raining! Lead singer grinning, laughing, everyone happy to be rained on…Flowers In The Window..still can’t sing along without choking up…working at Asda, stacking shelves, first child inside my belly, listening to the lyrics, let’s plant new seeds and watch them grow so there’ll be flowers in the garden when we go outside….wow look at you now, you are one in a million and I love you so, let’s watch the flowers grow..the video was all pregnant women and now can’t ever hear that song without remembering how it felt to be pregnant for the first time, just makes me think of her every time…

Embrace; Come Back To What You Know…relationship break-up, about to go away to Uni, living with mum, summer, jogging in the fields around the estate, still friends, not sure, scared, excited, not wanting to let go…was this song trying to tell me something?

Radiohead; all the songs on OK Computer…veeeeeery drunk on Sangria??!! In my bedroom, on my own, writing on my word processor, listening to this, writing random thoughts and thinking about lyrics, ended up on the floor, big jug of Sangria, what was I thinking? Why?? Still got those notes now. Hilarious to read. Thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams and an over-riding feeling of cold despair and fear for the future. Feeling that nothingness existed just for me. Thinking drink would help. Knowing it would not.

Oasis; Champagne Supernova…New Years Eve, 1998?? Everyone there, all the usual faces, everyone in love, everyone hammered, everyone crushed together in one hot dark horse shoe shaped pub, and this comes on….and everyone is singing, everyone is swaying, and hugging, and drinking, and loving, voices getting louder and louder…singing it all the way back home, drunken wobbling in heels along pavements of Christchurch…Cigarettes and Alcohol, Slide Away, Supersonic…getting read to go out music, loud as possible, wine on the go, tall mirror, heels, silk blouses?? Friends. Writing the lyrics around the edge of the pages in my diary…thinking, knowing, these are our songs, these are about us, and this is our band, this is our time…

Soul Asylum; Runaway Train…watching MTV house/dog sitting at my mum’s friends house, eating doughnuts, feeling fat, loving music, buying the vinyl single in Our Price

Gomez; Get Myself Arrested…summer of the break up, said boy turns up at my house in blood spattered shirt, not his fault, drunken night gone wrong, someone elses blood, standing up for a pal, got lairy with police, spent night in cell, and this song is out, this song is there, couldn’t be more perfect…Tijuanna Lady…Glastonbury, not sure what year, me, all alone, ankle deep in mud, band are new, crowd is small…start playing this, and a beautiful, in fact let’s get it right the most beautiful sunset of my entire life is happening right behind the stage, and all of life is hazy and shimmering and magical…and it is just me, all alone, soaking it up, one of those moments that you will never, ever forget…

The Stone Roses; I Am The Resurrection…had to have it loud every day, at least once a day, Uni days, got me going, had to be loud, all that mad drumming..Ten Storey Love Song…said boy taping these songs for me, me writing the lyrics out in a love letter to him, circling the special ones…Finsbury Park 2013, one of the best days of my life ever…all these songs, with so much attached, I am crying, actually crying, and so are people around me, because we love them so much! And when it is over, walking down the road, everyone singing This Is The One, this is the one, this is the one! This is the one, this is the one, she’s waited for! 

Steve Mason; Fight Them Back, listening to this album repeatedly all the way to Camp Bestival and back, summer 2014, me and my oldest and youngest child, windows down, slow, hot traffic, A Lot Of Love…will always think of my kids and that festival when I hear Steve Mason…then watching him live there, ranting about politics, just brilliant…

Super Furry Animals’ The Man Don’t Give A Fuck…Glastonbury 99?? Not sure. Middle of crowd, they are singing this song, and some truck or van is being driven through the crowd, no idea who is driving it or why, but people are climbing on it and dancing on it and it is moving very slowly through us, and it’s the same refrain over and over and everyone going nuts and loving it…no he don’t give a fuck about anybody else, no he don’t give a fuck about anybody else!

The Smiths; best of album, my go to sleep at Uni album for about a year, go out, get hammered, stagger home, fall into bed, head phones on, The Smiths. Weird.

The Beach Boys; God Only Knows, walk down aisle to be married, Wouldn’t It Be Nice? Walk back up aisle, married!!

Oasis; Wonderwall….first dance

Pulp; Mis-Shapes…me and my geeky friend, our song, all the lyrics just for us, about us! Watching them at the BIC, and Jarvis lights a fag and bends down to give it to a fan…and the crowd surge forward and we are right at the front and our ribs are crushed against the barriers and the barriers move, and the security men rush out, but all is ok, people move back, sorry, sorry, and Jarvis says don’t get hurt people, I don’t want you to get hurt

so many more, every CD I own will cause a slow collapse of memories and feelings, quite bizarre when you are driving, doing the school run, and all this stuff comes back to you…oh yeah, do you remember when??