This year, albeit on a bit of a whim, I brought Wes a turntable (yes absolutely one of those presents that was for me too) and I am so glad I did; it went down very well! As we all know music today is so massively accessible, with i-tunes, Spotify, YouTube, TV and no doubt a range of ways I’m yet to catch up on…. Like streaming ? What? When you come to think about it, it is all pretty fab that any genre, singer, culture, style is out there for all of us to attain, it is there to evoke, inspire, educate and to have a good old dance at the double tap on an app!
But I do secretly think, in a way for me in that easy acquisition, the fun and magic can be lost.
I remember distinctly saving up my pocket money for the second Kylie album and could not wait to get home from school to blast it out…(On tape, I will add, with the words in the sleeve). It took me months to save up my £4.95, my mum went and retrieved it from good old Woolworths for me, and as soon as I came out of school she waved it out the car window -Ahhh!!! …We all danced around the living room, (including my mum)…the wait was so worth it, although my dad didn’t agree. That is stuff that I am talking about. That wait, that patience, that appreciation (again not from my father who wasn’t as into Kylie’s Hand on Your Heart)
The days when the only way you got to watch the most recent music videos (and of course to learn all the dance steps) was to catch that weeks Top of The Pops, or do you remember those extra exciting times, when the new Michael Jackson video was on before the news? My God that got you through the week…. 10 minutes of amazement as you sat glued to the television. …No YouTube or Skyplus to use as a catch up…If you missed it, you missed it!
Now this isn’t a post to be woe me and ‘in my day’ no way, not at all. With my work and Wes’ the accessible digital, internet world is massively essential. But at home, when our professional worlds are left outside, those songs that send you back to being eleven or back to the time where you travelled around France with a boyfriend, or when your Dad finally said ‘NO’ more Jason, and the Sargent Pepper album went on, which you secretly enjoyed just as much, these memories can come flooding back. Perhaps the things that unconsciously shape you.
Yes of course you can get this when the strains come out of your laptop or i-pad but there is something about music from a Turntable that makes you slow down. Maybe because you’ve made more of an effort, maybe because the sound isn’t as crisp and clean, but the imperfections of this make the whole thing warmer and inviting. Or maybe because we are forever eleven years old!
When I first brought the Turntable, I thought we could be one of those cool couples that collected a load of vinyls, well with Wes’ collection not so much mine (yes he gave me a look of WHAT? when I repeated this to him)…But actually now I couldn’t care less about how hip any of it is….After raiding my parents’ vinyls (although I am gutted I got there after my sister….Madonna’s Like a Virgin LP is mine by the way!!!) We spent Saturday listening, singing, dancing, (more me) pottering about to a load of different stuff (Tax returns are much more fun with an LP or three ) Finding those albums that have been forgotten and the stories that come with them, and also the sheer enlightenment of the realisation of how cool my parents actually were…
So I thank myself for Wes’ present for reminding me the forgotten pleasure of listening to music… ….Even if Kylie and Jason’s Especially For You, got some turn time too…..I’m Never gonna be quite Like a Rolling Stone but I am cool with that!
Thank you for reading.
x
Promise To Carry The Cases 