MUSIC AND MEMORIES

With a 1952 birth date, I was fortunate to spend some of my most formative years in the 1960s. It was an exciting time, and I got ‘both barrels’ of the decade’s musical revolution. My wife thinks, with some justification, that my taste in music stalled in the early 70s. Many of my favourite songs were released in that period, but even today, I like to think I know a good tune when I hear one. I recognise, though, that a tangible legacy of growing through my teenage years in the 60s was how music became very influential in my life.

I guess an interesting after-dinner conversation might be: ‘Would it be harder to live without books or music?’ I love reading, but music generates tremendous emotion and can often be highly evocative, even just a few bars. I remember many of the books I have read, but only pieces of music or a song will transport me back to a moment in time.

In 1979, John Mellancamp wrote a song called ‘Taxi Dancer’. I heard it for the first time a few years later when I ‘discovered’ him and instantly embraced his brand of Folk Rock. The song tells the story of a young woman living in a small American town. She dreams of becoming a famous Broadway dancer and tries to fulfil her ambitions by moving to New York. It doesn’t go according to plan, and the lyrics paint a memorable picture as she falls on hard times soon after her arrival.

My reason for highlighting the song concerns one of those ‘moments in time’. Ten years after John Mellancamp wrote the song, I had to drive 800 miles from Essex to the Mediterranean coast in a Luton van filled with furniture. My mum was French, and one of her nephews was my cousin, Jean-Marie. He was three years younger than me, and apart from being a member of my extended family, he was also a good friend. We had a lot in common, and we were close. I stopped overnight with him and his family at the end of the first day on the drive south through France. He had offered to join me on the final leg of the journey so he could help me unload the van at the destination.

The hire van only had a basic radio installed. So, when I left home, I brought along a cassette player and some pre-recorded tapes. As Jean-Marie and I got ready to leave Montelimar, I inserted the recording of the album containing ‘Taxi Dancer’. When the track started playing, John-Marie almost immediately became transfixed. When it finished, he wanted to know what it was about. I explained the story, and he asked me to play it again. We must have listened to it four or five times. Before too long, he was singing along. Sadly, Jean-Marie died in 2013 at the frighteningly young age of 57! Now, whenever I hear the opening piano chords of ‘Taxi Dancer’, I am instantly transported back to the cab of a Luton van trundling slowly down the Autoroute; Jean-Marie is next to me, singing, with a lovely French accent, words he didn’t really understand but with an emotion perfect for the story in the song.

Post Views : 140