A song for Bob

He carried music, the voice of Youth, so much on those weak shoulders
Eyes like boulders, lyrics hot, harmonica smoulders

A hooked crooked nose
No-one knows
what goes through his head

Hear him play that country guitar
Through a creaking door, ajar,
Through to Cash's house
With June too

Blood on the tracks
Stacks and stacks of stolen records
From journeys cross country
Bus hopping, pill popping, train don't stopping
Crazy!

If music be the food of love

...then get stuck in

According to Yusef Islam(if you don't know who he is then you need a good wake-up) music helps to feed the soul. We need music for spiritual fulfilment and nourishment. On reason we sing hymns at church is to express our faith in another way. It offers something different and we remember the words more if we sing them to a tune, rather than mindlessly repeat them each week.

I think that listening to music for fulfilment is connected rather strongly to psychology. By listening to music at significant times of our lives we take a musical photograph where, when we next listen to that piece of music, we take ourselves back. They aren't as vivid as photographs - you aren't taken back immediately, but, with some recollection it does eventually work.

For example, Last Nite by the Strokes takes me back to the summers of 2001 and 2002, when they were reaching a more wider audience within the realms of indie/popular music. The album, Is This It, with the black glove on the ladies bare bottom, with a paper inner booklet rather than over produced glossy finish - i remembers it all like it wer yesterday - the heat of the sun, the drinking, the celebration. all good, all innocent, all exciting, all real.

I started singing a song from Oliver! the other day in my room. I played Mr Bumble in the Lionel Bart version of the Charles Dickens classic whilst at secondary school. It was a great role and relished one of the most famous lines of the play: "Mooooorrrrrrrrrreeee??????" Obviously it didn't have the high pitched wheeze of Harry Secombe but I made up for that with an equally comedic performance. Well, that's what I thought at the time.

Music takes me back to all different periods in my life. The first time I heard the Clash was when I went to a party and only put it on to impress a girl I quite fancied. A ll I will say now is that a few years down the line...married, three children and a massive house...is ain't what I has got.

Reading into it...

..

I sometime think that, after comparing myself to famous folks of my age, that I have failed so I become depressed, sad, errant.

Michael Owen was earning BIG bucks, so too was Beckham at 22. No doubt Kevin Spacey was appearing on stage in front of vast numbers of people and Oscar Wilde was being his usual over-the-top-and-still-being-beautiful self. Course, not a COMPLETE cross section and so my faith is restored. Monet was a post-humous success. Others of particular note are:

• Emily Dickinson
• Van Gogh
• J S Bach
• James Dean
• Billy Holiday

So I suppose I shouldn't feel downhearted. I'm at that crossroads now and I probably won't know if I did the right thing until when I get to the end of the road, look back over the journey and either think 'oh fuck - look what I missed out on' or 'wow I've not done bad for myself!' I do hope it's the latter. Oh and Jesus didn't start his ministry until about 30 so I have a few more years to really make an impact!

Surrounded by piles of books by young poets. I've still got 6 years on Armitage but erm erm erm the words don't come out as well as I would like 'em too!

Public libraries are grand. They bring books to the masses. The weirdos, the smellies, the wanderers and the homeless come for the books. I'm probably a mixture of all those types. The chattering ladies behind the counter tell the old men to shush!!! Their page turning is too much for the women, as they slurp hot coffee and crunch noisy parkin. I have always wondered how Mp3 people can listen to their music in the library, force EVERYONE else to listen to it and then read...or at least look like they are very convincingly.

Then there's distractions outside of the library. With beautiful buildings from the third floor up, green domes, chiseled statues and capitals, stone pillars sheltering pigeons from the rain, plus lots of other architectural beauties I don't know the name for. The buses go by so much you don't notice. The chavs and birds shit everywhere.

I just wish they would all go away and let me read my Viz in peace!