Life is always better with a soundtrack

My love affair with London was torrid.

I fought and kicked at her, loved her passionately and with glorious abandon, rediscovered her at every turn, fell out of her graces, grew bitter and angry, despised her teeming streets and never ending streaming tourists, threatened to leave and then to stay; felt suffocated and empty and small in her embrace until suddenly, one day wandering Soho's dirty streets with my walkman and a broken heart, feeling that life had somehow forgotten about me that I fell completely madly utterly back in love.

Life is always better with a soundtrack.

On that grey Wednesday afternoon it was Saint Etienne with its neopolitan candy sweet cover that brought London back to me; not too long after The Ex and I had left each other and not too long after I had been told I was losing my job. Somehow, amidst all that, there was joy.

I had forgotten the soundtracks of my youth, dancing to Olivia Newton John and lip synching to ABBA in my mom's old sequinned boob tubes and silver shoes, my brief foray into Motley Crue and Def Lepard, sitting underneath a street lamp listening to RATT on long summer evenings. My graduation to the Sex Pistols, The Dead Kennedys and The Cure watching the boys skate by, even now there is still that nostalgic yearning of those crushes at the sound of a skateboard whizzing past me. Depeche Mode, INXS, U2, The Cult, Joy Division, New Order. All anthems of my teenage heart, cassettes carefully compiled and labelled *Dave* or *Rob* or *Chad* to play alongside adolscent angst; listening to Bob Marley and Cat Stevens in tie dyed t-shirts and quartz crystal necklaces in Amelia's bedroom. A friend handing me Nirvana "Bleach" before the grunge scene exploded. Frustrated with the AM radio in my old 1968 Plymouth struggling to pick up a frequency on the drive to college, I travelled with a small ghetto blaster tucked on the front seat.
Frankie Goes to Hollywood reminding me of nights at the China Beach; Gin Blossoms and Stone Temple Pilots of the hot days of my 19th summer, margaritas on those humid Monday nights and my little red sportscar. Tuesday nights at Luvaffair introduced me to Front 242, Nitzerebb; lured me onto the dance floor with Morrisey and The Beastie Boys. Jamiroquai and the soundtrack to Priscilla playing over and over, lipsticks and misfits marking my days at MAC.

My 20's flew by in shiny UK clubs and hip hop, dance, trance, ska, punk, rock, house. I couldn't keep up, jumped from bar to bar, drank too much and danced it off. Worked PR for clubs and sat up drinking tea and talking tattoos with Boy George and Jon Digweed one crazy January night. Yet nothing ever stayed fluid, there was no consistency, no soothing sounds and I lost interest.

Life is better with a soundtrack.

The Ex was a music aficionado, yet it took Knickers' eclectic collection of old jazz and the boys in Kentish Town's acoustic collections to turn me back on. That glorious summer sunset in Afissos and Manu Chao; Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, The White Stripes playing loudly in the room next to mine, Tom oblivious to the volume. Red wine picnics and Glenn Miller bands in Canary Wharf attempting to jive in the streets, dancing in my room to Goldfrapp (courtesy of Liam and Friday nights at Ghetto) and wearing out the Wild Strawberries when I was sad.

On a trip to Seattle Miss Devylish sent me home with the Pocket DJ, downloaded her collection onto my itunes. I kept my eyes and ears open, went to gigs, flirted (albeit briefly and with disastrous results) with death metal, accepted an invitation to see Bob Dylan, met musicians and tried new clubs and bars. Danced to G Love at the Commodore, pushed past sweaty hip hops kids at the Columbia and braved the snow and cold for the Bloc Party.

Life, you see, is better with a soundtrack.

And today, making my way across town to work, my shiny new red ipod plugged to my ear, Vancouver suddenly looks brighter. Somehow the rain seems more ethereal, less dull and slightly more glorious.

* My colleague just sent me this, and I had to share as it was so fitting. Turn your speakers up, sit back and enjoy.