Songs for my daughter – 1

My sister posted a meme the other saying ‘if you can’t handle me randomly blurting out song lyrics that relate to what you just said, we can’t be friends’. It’s obviously a genetic thing. We take music very seriously in our family.

I find music an unbelievably powerful force. I can’t just stick on something in the background. I get far too involved.  Music gets inside me, burrows under my skin and penetrates the deepest recesses of my soul.

At times I just don’t have the headspace to devote to music so I can go for weeks or even months without intentionally listening to specific music. I would rather have no music on than have people talking over really powerful songs. I literally can’t concentrate if a song I like is on in the background. Shamefully, I am more tuned in to the music or the lyrics than to the real life conversation around me.

And woe betide anyone who turns off a song I like before it’s fully over…I want to hear the very end, I need to hear the end. To me it’s like taking away my plate when I’m still eating, making me get out of the shower with shampoo still on my head or leaving the cinema 10 minutes early. These things have a definite finish and a song is just the same.

Music conjures up strong memories, sometimes I can actually remember exactly where I was the last time I heard a song, right down to the bend in the road. Some songs have such a deep connection to people and places I no longer know, that I find it too painful to hear those songs. There are some songs that I associate so strongly to old flames that it feels like a betrayal of my husband to even hear them in passing.

There are songs for dancing. If one of these comes on in the car, I have my own style of car dancing that literally takes me over like a woman possessed. There are songs for singing. Loudly. There are songs for reflection. And these cannot be handled or listened to lightly. And there are the song that form the soundtrack to my life.

Some songs get right to my emotional core and this is most obvious when lyrics speak directly to me about my amazing daughter. I can hardly hear the line “If you fall I will catch you – I’ll be waiting. Time after time” without big, hot, tears building up. It’s no surprise that this is one song I hope doesn’t come on in the background when I’m supposed to be concentrating on something else.

“Time After Time” – Cyndi Lauper

Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick,
And think of you
Caught up in circles confusion –
Is nothing new
Flashback – warm nights –
Almost left behind
Suitcases of memories,
Time after –

Sometimes you picture me –
I’m walking too far ahead
You’re calling to me, I can’t hear
What you’ve said –
Then you say – go slow –
I fall behind –
The second hand unwinds

[Chorus:]
If you’re lost you can look – and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall I will catch you – I’ll be waiting
Time after time

After my picture fades and darkness has
Turned to gray
Watching through windows – you’re wondering
If I’m OK
Secrets stolen from deep inside
The drum beats out of time –

[Chorus:]
If you’re lost…

You said go slow –
I fall behind
The second hand unwinds –

[Chorus:]
If you’re lost…
…Time after time
Time after time
Time after time
Time after time

Written by Cyndi Lauper and Rob Hyman

Today’s earworm: ‘Music Sounds Better With You’ – Stardust

Last night’s different dinner score: 3 😦

 

 

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