I hear an old Tom Jones song in a movie, and for a moment, the movie is forgotten as the tune takes me back to a time when things had been simpler, and the world, less complicated. It leads me to my childhood home, where I can picture my mother singing the same happy song while making dinner in the kitchen, my dad applying a screwdriver to an old radio he’s been repairing, and my brother and I playing with our dinky toys on the carpet.
But that was then, and now, I’m the one singing, making dinner, as the music ties my yesterdays with today.
Sometimes, I watch my little boy stand in front of the computer (yes, that’s where my music plays from) and listen intently to the songs running through my playlist. He asks me to play one or two of his favourites again and this time, without me singing aloud, please. And it strikes me that these songs will find a place in his memories…memories that he will look back upon some day in the distant future, when he’s in a different place maybe, when he chances upon Gary Moore or Pink Floyd playing on the radio, or an old jazz composition that his dad had loved listening to.
And this music will take him to those carefree days, when he used to enjoy a game of Scrabble with his mom on rainy evenings, or when he read a story book, sitting with his parents on the couch, while they enjoyed a cup of tea together. He will remember the familiar tunes that had flooded the corners of his home then, and it will connect him to the child he used to be…who had been secure in the knowledge that he was loved, and that his world was alright.
And he will feel the same, again.
The way I feel now, through every note in the music that my parents used to listen to, long ago, and in every melody that my son will recall, long after.
