Monday, January 22, 2007

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.

13 comments:

madelyn said...

fabulous - truly !!

my soundtrack today is one
song because i am
hopeless -

fairytale (Shrek)

oh and anything -well
actually i choose -
"if it be your will"

Antony on the I'm your man
soundtrack...

hugs!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful post, Lady Miss.

A song can encapsulate so many memories...

Devil Mood said...

Definitely better with a soundtrack. :) I wonder if kids today will have the same kind of memories...they have music with them all the time and immediate access to everything they want to listen to. Somehow I don't think they'll enjoy songs as much as we did when we bought our first cds...But maybe that's just me feeling old.

Anonymous said...

All those bands...I could have written this. Except for the part where it was actually well-written. But yes...Motley Crue and Ratt to the Cure and Depeche Mode and all the other ones I can't go back and see just now...all of them bring back, so very vividly, the exact era of my life I loved that song most. Life truly does need a soundtrack.

lady miss marquise said...

My parents gave me a CD player for my 13th birthday, along with "Boys Don't Cry" by The Cure which was my very first ever CD.

I can't always remember what happened the week before last, or 3 or 5 or 8 years ago but I can always remember what I was listening to, and what songs tugged on heartstrings.

It's a good point, DM. With everything so easily and readily at their fingertips, is the younger generation desensitized? I have just (well... within the last year) bought my first *new* computer, started using a digital camera and joined the ipod / mp3 bandwagon, yet for most young people being without these things is foreign.

Thanks for your comments
x

(And I will admit that the song spinning in my head on my way to work this week is: "Jesus Built my Hotrod", Ministry!!)

Miss Devylish said...

I always have memories set to music.. I love that. I know exactly what song was playing when one of my first high school loves uttered the 'it's not you, it's me,' for the first time (Fragile by Sting (how fitting)), the song we, as the prom committee, chose to encapsulate the entire evening (Forever Young by Alphaville) and now I set up funky and hyper mixes on the ibook thinking I will send them to ppl (Treena) but need to 'test' them out first in the car on my happy drives.. It would be so much quieter (and boring) w/out a soundtrack. And I sing it all in my car. :)

Anonymous said...

Petite will agree with you, methinks.

Smell, and music , in that order, for recalling memories...
my two-bits.

-e.

Unknown said...

Oh you ABSOLUTELY need a soundtrack...

...ooh and Saint Etienne brings a smile to my face!

Anonymous said...

The Ghetto! Goldfrapp! SoHo! Your descriptions of London are bewitching.

"the b" said...

I replied! Where has it gone?

Can't remember what I said. Oh, have been driving and much enjoying that, music up loud, singing along with no inhibitions!

And sounds like you're due a trip back to London...?!

Miss Tickle said...

Dear Lady Miss, I stumbled across you in the oddest way: finding a picture on you Flickr of one of my closest friends*. I had found you via the lovely Mr Andre and Mr Unreliable.

So I thought I'd drop in to say hello.

Hello.

(Maps and Mr H, lord love 'em.)

paris parfait said...

Great post, great music! Life truly is better with a soundtrack. And I know what you mean about leaving London and falling in and out of love with it at various times. I hated to leave London for Paris (although Paris has its moments) and I still expect to go back someday.

~d said...

I cannot believe my first visit here is to ask you about the clown and the nun.
Jeez.