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I find myself knowing the things that I knew

Stranger things have happened but for the past three days I have found myself listening to a whole spectrum of music, some good, some lame. 

“Why is this relevant? So what?”

The following demonstrates how deeply one can change and how change however small can take you by surprise.

Now my lost love had a number of music ‘phases’.  When we first hung out she was mostly listening to “The concretes”, as time went on top spot was taken by “The Magic Numbers” played over and over again for weeks/months at a time.  I got into them and quite liked what I was listening to.

Then Joanna Newsom entered my life…..

She too was played again and again with no let up, over and over again; at home, in the car – everywhere. For whatever reason, I just found her quirky voice resonated in my head in every conceivable wrong way.  It became an ‘issue’.

We would barter what was played in what order so that Joanna was heard sufficiently to satisfy and that anything might be listened to as a break between Joanna tracks to that I did not end up cutting my wrists. 

At one point I bought (as a pathetic joke) a Halloween sounds CD from the supermarket to complement Joanna’s album, with cats screeching and ghouls chuckling to the background of squeaking doors and thunder. That joke did not go down very well as you can appreciate.  Even though it was a silly joke, it really did seem to offend, which was never the intention.  Looking back, for this I am sorry.  I know that at the time I did not realize how hurting this must have been.

Anyhow, over the last week whilst clearing the shelf above the TV in preparation for the renters to move in to my house as I am off, I have been listening to a host of random (mostly rubbish music).  I suddenly found myself upstairs on the laptop listening on iTunes to Joanna. 

It occurred to me that even though I thought I was not keen on her, I actually profoundly missed her in the background and foreground of my life.  Bizarre I know, but truth.

I listened to the 20 second extracts and knew all of them, they had settled into my subconscious as familiar as old socks rediscovered at the back of the drawer.  I bought the album (The Milk-eyed Mender).

 

It’s been playing this morning and it’s a fact that there are some tracks I prefer over others (This side of the Blue/Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowie). 

Generally her voice has not grated as it used to and I have even found myself listening to the language in the lyrics.  Lyrics I had previously been completely oblivious too.  In fact although unique, her tone is ethereal to me. 

I just don't know what to make of it all.  It could be another olive occurrence.  You know, the kind of thing that you hate at first but then cannot get enough of.  Maybe Joanna's voice is like a big sweet delicious acoustic olive (Although Cassiopeia is still just a little too bitter for my infant-like palate).

I suppose when I was first immersed head long
into the world of Joanna, it was done forcibly and against my will.  I suppose too that my head was not in the right place to be ‘hearing’ her.  My head did not need her.

Now, as if a switch has been flicked, Joanna is medicine and I celebrate the harp which in my mind is equal to the clarinet as my preferred instrument of choice.

Maybe in time I will be rid of this affliction and become normal again.  Who the devil knows?