Listening to.....

A friend sent an email to me after reading my blog.

“…..A whole list of things that have gone wrong in your life (I was amazed that you could keep count and still appear happy and well-adjusted!) that can only be compensated by rock music (certainly an original way of counting one's blessings)…..”

Rock music is my blessing? Yes. Thank you, Rock! I don’t think I could survive this far without music. Of course, I am exaggerating. It numbs my mind so that it does not churn. It soothes my soul. It cries and screams with me. Very few things in my life are that faithful and so readily available.

I had very little pocket money when I was a teenager. Whatever I had, I would spend it on music albums. A tape would cost me 5 dollars sometimes 6. I discovered a stall in Chinatown that was selling albums cheaper than elsewhere. I would list the albums that I wanted to get in a notebook, dreamed about listening to them on my walkman. When I saved up enough money, I would make a trip to Chinatown to that stall. I could only afford three albums, sometimes five if I were prudent with my spending, per quarter.

Sometimes when I could not hold out, I would rush to the nearby music store and buy the album that I wanted and paid an additional dollar or two for it. Then for the whole of that week, I had to cut down on food, eating plain noodles with a few shreds of fish cakes. Those plain noodles cost 50cents each. I grimaced each time I had to eat those noodles. But my spirits would be uplifted each time I put on my earphones and listened to the album – my indulgent buy.

When I was 15, I decided that I wanted to be a music producer. I started to write songs and more than a year later accumulated quite a number of them which were written mostly during my down period as an angsty young teenager. I wrote when I was angry, sad, upset, angsty, confused, unsure, trapped….

From that collection of songs, I chose some of my best ones and sent them to a record company.

I waited. I waited for my dream to unfold – a music contract coming in through the post. I would be the youngest music producer. I daydreamed about it often. I daydreamed that I would be shipped away to somewhere in the US, maybe, for a music degree. I would make music all day.

Then the post came. I waited for at least two months, I think. I opened it. My songs were returned to me. The company said they did not have any use for them but asked me to keep my work coming. Of course, it was only polite that they said that: keep them coming. I was bitterly disappointed. My young heart was shattered. My pride was hurt.

I lifted the lid of my piano bench and threw the letter in there and let it rest together with my other songs, and some score books.

I quit piano. I quit writing music. I would leave my walkman, which my father paid more than 200 bucks for when I was 12 (it was the first wireless walkman at that time), lying for weeks and not listen to it. I was angry. I took it out on music, which was a silly thing to do.

I abandoned that dream and for a long while, I was lost.

Should I be an engineer? Maybe. So I took physics, read all about heat transfer and kinetic energy. Yucks. I swallowed. I took further mathematics and was really bad at it. I was miserable.

But I did well enough miraculously to get into Bizad at NUS. I picked up listening to music again – rock and ballads mainly, Cranberries and U2 mainly. My white old walkman was still with me. It had been with me for many years. In fact, the walkman is still with me now lying in the drawer attached to the table where my computer sits. I hardly use it now. It has been replaced by a CD player, later a MD player and now with my white ipod. Cranberries and U2 have been replaced by Lifehouse and Jimmy Eat World.

My problems are more complex than the ones I had as an angsty teenager. The songs are played a lot louder on a better hi-fi which I could afford now. I played the songs louder than before as if the higher decibel would compensate for my more complex problems.

I played Pulp’s Like a Friend when I was having shouting matches with him, when we couldn’t stop arguing, and when we finally broke up.

I played Pulp’s I am a Man when I was working late and had gone on with little sleep for a number of days.

My relationship with alternative rock grew stronger when I was in the US. There was an alternative rock radio station in Chicago. It offered 24 hours of alternative rock, streaming in heaven to my ears. I listened to it at night when I was writing my essays for school. I listened to it during the day when I had to take the rather bulky camera out to get footage for my broadcast stories. I listened to it when I was waiting for the El to Evanston. I listened to it jogging on days when the weather was not too harsh. I listened to it strolling in parks or when I was visiting the small zoo in the city. That was when I fell in love with Jimmy Eat World and GooGoo Doll. However, the love I had for GooGoo doll was rather short-lived. The band had only one good song and now they are as good as dead.

My relationship with alternative rock was still going strong when I moved to Washington DC. I found another station that offered me a decent amount of alternative rock, and some indie rock. So I listened to it jogging from my rented apartment to Georgetown and back. I listened to it watching the mob downstairs from my balcony protesting against the Iraq war. I listened to it when the heath care policy in the US confused me and I didn’t know how to proceed with a story. I listened to it while eating my favourite sandwich from Pot Belly.

Yes, rock is my blessing.

Now, I am listening to…

Wide Open Space by Mansun

I’m in a wide open space, I’m standing
I’m all alone and staring into space
It’s always quiet thru’ my ceiling
The roof comes in and crashes in a daze

I’m in a wide open space, it’s freezing
You’ll never get to heaven with a smile on your face from me
I’m in a wide open space, I’m staring
There’s something quite bizarre I cannot see

I’m on the top of a hill, I’m lonely
There’s someone here to shout to miles away
I could be back in my house, for I care
They do not hear me, it’s the same old case