An incomplete history

A few nights ago I watched The Concert, one of those lovely European films that are simultaneously heart-wrenching and uplifting. There is this beautiful scene (and here I’ll try not to give the plot away) of a political prisoner in Siberia. A former concert violinist, she escapes from her harsh reality by playing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on a make-believe violin, over and over again, until the other prisoners label her “the mad woman”.

That scene got me thinking about the constant presence of music in my life, and what it means to me. Warning: this is not the shortest piece of writing, nor the most coherent. I simply feel compelled to write some of these thoughts down.

My very first concrete memory is of me as a three-year-old dancing around in our kitchen to the sounds of BZN – one of those European pop acts that made it big in South Africa. It wasn't the most profound music on earth, and I most certainly don’t listen to it anymore (or at least, I’ll never admit to still listening to it).

But it is the first music I remember hearing.

And it is the first music I remember loving.

It was track 1.

BZN signalled the start of my life’s score. It was a happy, unpretentious start. It was me dancing and singing along to carefree ditties about love, love and more love. I could barely speak English at the age of three, but I swear I knew almost every word to every song - miraculous knowledge, born out of pure and simple love for what I was hearing.

BZN’s follow-up act is a living legend. Her name is Laurika Rauch, and she taught me to sing in my own language. The simplistic honesty of her songs (mostly written by her husband, the irreplaceable Christopher Torr), along with her warm alto voice is the sound of countless family road trips. It’s the ultimate driving music, because no-one tells a story like Laurika Rauch. I could never be bored with the tales of Donkerman, Mannetjies Roux and Jakob F. de Beer filling my head. To this day, whenever I find myself in the backseat of someone else’s car, my favourite thing to do is to sing her songs, softly to myself, always with a nostalgic lump in my throat.

My first meeting with classical music came at the age of five. I discovered Johann Strauss’ Blue Danube in my parents’ record collection, and found it the perfect music to “practice” ballet to. Dressed in my brand-new pink leotard and slippers, I performed to the vast audience in my mind, skipping and pirouetting, waving my arms in a swanlike manner (just like Anna Pavlova in a movie I saw on television once).

For the next three to four years, any description I gave of myself, or of what I wanted to be some day, included the word “ballerina”. All because of Strauss. And all because of Strauss I went into life wide open to other classical masters, like Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Mozart, Vivaldi, and of course, Bach. A world without his cello suites would not be worth living in.

At the age of five, though, there was still only Strauss and wanting to be a ballerina. Of course, thanks to Walt Disney, the occupation of an adventure-starved princess was always at the back of my mind. I just watched Aladdin again last weekend, and no, I still don’t think “A whole new world” is corny. On the contrary, the lyrics always pull my heart out of its complacency with life as it is. It makes me want to be someone amazing, and it makes me want to do amazing things.

It makes me want to go on a magic carpet ride.

I could wax lyrical about Disney songs all day, but let’s move along swiftly.

At the age of seven I discovered musicals. CD’s had finally made it into the ordinary South African household, and the very first CD my parents bought was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Premiere Collection. I could write a chapter about every single track on that album, and back then I couldn't possibly pick a favourite among such a diverse collection of songs. Only years later, when my mum made me watch the brilliant film adaptation of Evita, did I discover my favourite musical. Goosebumps. Every time.

Now I’m just going to brush over the atrocities of “The Macarena” and Whigfield’s “Sexy eyes”, as well as a prolonged and very embarrassing obsession with Hanson, the Spice Girls and Britney Spears.

Good. Glad we got that out of the way.

On 9 December 1999, I heard the song that changed the way I listened to music forever. I was at a slumber party, and 5FM was playing softly in the background. We had stayed up all night, and the sun was just stretching its legs through the curtains, when my heart stopped at the sound of Live’s “Run to the Water”.

It wasn't the most beautiful, nor the most powerful song I would ever hear, but it led in one of the greatest parts of my life’s soundtrack: the rock years. I started listening to bands like Live, Collective Soul, U2, The Eels, Coldplay, Pearl Jam, REM, the lesser-known K’s Choice, and Counting Crows. The latter was very special to my friends and me. Adam Duritz introduced me to the idea of lyrics as poetry, and they were the first band that I saw live. I hardly ever listen to Counting Crows nowadays, but when I do, it feels like an old friend just walked in through my front door, bringing with him all that was best of my teenage years.

During the rock years, somewhere between 15 and 16, I also went through a bit of a retro folky phase where I mainly listened to Tracy Chapman, Simon & Garfunkel and Leonard Cohen. My fascination with Tracy came and went, while Simon & Garfunkel is a love that will last a lifetime. As for Cohen, I am very grateful to report that I recently rediscovered him, thanks to my parents’ DVD of his 2009 performance at the O2 Arena in London. What a poet! “Anthem” will drive me to tears again and again, and “Suzanne” makes me love my name (even though I harbour no delusions that the song is actually about me). But the moment of all moments during that concert is the Webb sisters’ rendition of “If it be your will”. I wish I could describe it, but I’ll just end up being melodramatic.

Buy the DVD. Watch it.

Then there was Creed. Now, I can only imagine how many eyes will be rolling over this most commercial of commercial rock bands, but say what you want, no-one plays guitar like Mark Tremonti. No-one. Besides, a mutual love of Creed was, at the age of 16, the first thing I shared with my fiancé. And Weathered was the very first gift he gave me.

I think I feel about Tremonti’s face melting solo’s the way today’s schoolgirls feel about that Bruno Mars song.

Of course, an account of the rock years would be incomplete if I didn't mention the late, great Leeway, a garage band which consisted of my fiancé and four of our best friends. Sadly, Leeway never made it as big as they should’ve, but I had so much appreciation for how dedicated these five people were to their music, to producing something truly special. They introduced me to the more intricate side of music and gave me the quintessential teenage experience of being a groupie. I still miss band practice Saturdays and the gigs at Bohemia. 

Those, as they say, were the good old days.

The rock years were a time of severe musical snobism when I only deigned to roll my eyes at other genres and believed that performing with a backtrack was a crime against humanity. Then in 2007 Mika appeared on the scene, a strangely significant moment in my relationship with music. I didn't want to like Mika, but damnit, that “Grace Kelly” song was just so catchy! Suddenly it just felt silly to deny myself something that clearly made me want to strip off my pants and dance around in my underwear. Which I shamelessly did. Several times.

I don’t listen to Mika anymore (some music just comes and goes), but he definitely made me more open to other genres. I still mainly listen to rock, but I also like to get down to Jay-Z as much as the next white girl, and I love it when “Hello” by Martin Solveig comes on while I’m driving. I no longer need music to be significant or timeless in order to listen to it. I've let myself go, and now I listen to whatever I like.

I am now in the “post-snob” years where I've made the happy discovery that, if I am open to it, there will always be one more amazing act I haven’t heard yet. Some favourites that I’ve discovered over the last two to three years include Florence and the Machine, Biffy Clyro, Sweet Billy Pilgrim, aKing, The National, the sublime Arcade Fire (“Suburban War” is a masterpiece), Marina and the Diamonds, MGMT, Vampire Weekend, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Regina Spektor, Feist, Ingrid Michaelson, Stars, Radical Face and my latest crush, The Naked and Famous.

One last thing. I cannot post this piece without mentioning Muse, my favourite favourite band. In the words of a recent comment on Youtube, “If I could have sex with Matt Bellamy’s voice, I would.” Let’s just leave it at that.

Reading what I've written I feel foolish. I couldn't possibly cram every single song that has ever meant something to me, or made my memories more memorable, into one short piece of writing. Even if I wrote a book on the subject, it would still remain an incomplete history.

All I know is music is the first thing I remember.

And I’m pretty sure it will be the last.

Welcome to the quarter

For the first twenty-three years of my life I lived in the wonderful oblivion that comes with the complete self-involvement of youth. As a teenager and student, I spent most of my time in the whimsical haze of my Sturm und Drang years, thinking myself a Bohemian because I wore scarves instead of belts around my waist, and writing poems about all my teenage angst to impress my pseudo-intellectual friends with. My diary droned on for days about some or other spotty Adonis over at the neighbouring boys school, and the worst thing that had ever happened to me was a failed driver’s test (or two). As soon as life got too hard, vacation time kicked in: three months of doing an unthinkable amount of nothing.

Somehow, during all those years of navel-gazing and obsessing over life’s great existential questions (Who am I? What is the point of me? How do other girls always get their hair to lie flat?), I never really thought about real life. I suppose it’s because I always had that closet full of unasked for parental advice in the back of my mind: say please and thank you, don’t talk to strangers, your skirt won’t ride up if you wear pantyhose, and (my personal favourite) life’s not fair, get used to it. I really, genuinely believed that these pearls of wisdom would be all I ever needed to know. So why waste valuable time on a reality check?

Oh well. After six years of blissful childhood, twelve years of school, five years of studying and one glorious year abroad, twenty-four came to end it all. And what an unceremonious end it was. Six months into my first “real” job, tired after another day’s hard work, my mind instinctively reached for its one and only real coping mechanism, “Don’t worry, holiday’s just around the corner.”

But it wasn't. Not for another six months when I would take my fifteen annual days off. Fifteen days. Not three months. Not even three weeks. Fifteen days. And there it was. The thing my parents had forgotten to tell me:

There are no breaks from adulthood.

It never ends. There isn't a prolonged pause between one year and the next. There is no sleeping in and copying your classmate’s notes later. Responsibilities start and never stop accumulating, and weekends become a refuge for your social life.

It never ends.

Baffled by my inability to see this coming, I retreated to my personal library of memories: break times on the school lawn, walking to class down a leafy Victoria Street, afternoon naps on rainy days, midnight parties on the beach with friends and a bottle of wine, and my sweetest memory of all: handing all my mail from ABSA over to my dad unopened.

As soon as I dared to peek outside my nostalgia, a world that could only have been dreamt up by Samuel Beckett awaited me, and I found it ever so slightly terrifying.

Then, one beautiful spring day, twenty-five came. Sitting on my veranda at the foot of Table Mountain, drinking tea and reading my favourite magazine I had an unexpected change of heart.

I realised that these are the best years of my life.

Yes, my job can be frustrating, but it’s my job that I get to be great at. Yes, my flat has cockroaches, lifting tiles, leaking pipes and (I only discovered it this morning) a wet patch of wall behind my bed, but it’s my flat where I can come and go as I please. I have my car, some money in the bank, and I live in what I am convinced is the most beautiful city in the world.

What’s more, I have my youth, but now I have it without all the angst and pretension of my adolescent years. My poems are better, my friends have grown up with me, and that spotty Adonis from the neighbouring boys school has grown into my gorgeous fiancé. Plus, I now wear scarves because I actually like them, not because I wish I was Isadora Duncan.

Best of all, even better than admitting that I like the new Katy Perry single without worrying about my reputation, is the sublime feeling of accomplishment at the end of each day. I love, love, LOVE that I am able to drive myself through the city, that I am earning my own living, paying my own rent, cooking my own food (yesterday’s roast chicken was another triumph) and cleaning my own flat. I’m sure the aspiring Serena van der Woodsens of the world would disagree, but I honestly don’t think it gets better than this.

And yes, adulthood is bound to get more complicated as the years go by and mortgages, kids and dentures appear. But as someone once said, “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my ship.”

In other words: bring it on.