Emily's Childhood Play List Lent Day 9

Music is a very important part of my life. I think it is for most people. And to be honest I battle to associate with people who don't somehow rely on music the get them through their day.

I've just popped in to chat to our Director of Music this morning. He is preparing our boys to sing at a memorial service this afternoon. A well known figure in our school community passed away over the weekend due to COVID and his family have requested two of his favourite songs to be sung.

I listened to the boys rehearsing one of them - Queen's 'Who Wants To Live Forever'. On discovering that this was one of the requested songs I literally had to hold in a massive 'tjank' of sadness in. I did not even know this man but I know this song and I can only imagine how it is going to make everyone feel when they hear it during the service.

I realise many of my blogs have somehow touched on death recently and I really didn't want to be morose today. I suppose its just such a big part of our lives at the moment. But my actual point is this - music can make us feel things in a way that nothing else can. The first bar of a piece of music can take us back to that time, to that room, with that emotion, at that point in our development as a human. We have invented a time travel machine, we just haven't realized it yet.

Today is my first installment of Emily's favourite songs that help me to travel back in time.

 I present The Childhood Edition....

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN11m5kVkLM

I had a great fantasy of being a nurse serving in some kind of war or other. And the fantasy started super early in life so it's not like I was influenced by the likes of Florence and co. I was probably about four years old and I would take out our good old Tchaikovsky record and place it on the record player, gramophone if you will. And then I'd run around our room performing operations on imaginary injured soldiers.

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ml3nyww80

Wowzer! I wish I had seen this music video before! It is magic... So my mom had a cassette tape of 80s treffers. This is the only song I can remember off it but there were some goodies. Picture the scene - Emily, aged 5, involuntary 80s hair, dancing up a storm, sweating - probably as a result of the 'Cruel Cruel Summer' we were all experiencing - we were in a drought, after all. 

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCZSHFfZm7E

Obviously old Andrew made the cut. We had a tape of his greatest hits. This one was my favourite. I used to make my poor brother, Tom, pretend to be a cat and I would be the cat catcher. It normally ended in tears.

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUuID6Rz1FU

I cant help but think this song is super unPC these days, perhaps even racist. But it did herald my debut on stage. I have many to thank for my genetically inherited dramatic talents - but no one more than my Mom. She directed many of our school productions in junior school and in a display of inspired nepotism she cast me and my cousin Fran as the leads in this song. I was the oke whose boomerang wouldn't come back and Fran was the witchdoctor. Even if I say so myself - we stole the show. 

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcHdzdCxLuo

The Steenkamp's lounge, Pietermaritzburg. Steve Steenkamp had a CD he wanted to play for us. This was the first song he played us. To this day I can honestly say that my mom and I have never laughed so much - we were eventually crawling on the floor trying not to wet ourselves. I still battle every time I hear it. Listen to the end. 

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EdmHSTwmWY

My first foray into a love ballad. Many a heartfelt solo sung to this song in our attic.

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIuYQ_4TcXg

I felt this song was very cool. I was very cool when I sang it. Loved the little rap bit at the end. 

8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7FN6XflbL8

Mango Groove always and forever. Claire Johnson was my idol,  she still is. I used to dream that the Mango Groove bus would pull up at the farm and take me on tour with them. Then I'd get separation anxiety and would replay the dream so that my Mom could come with me as well. 

I'm sure other songs will pop up as soon as I post this but so be it. A smattering of childhood memories captured in music forever. 

And in the words of a band I'm not particularly fond of - 'Thank you for the music!'

PS Stay tuned for my next installment - The Teen Years Edition. 

Angst...