Top of the Pops, Radio 1, my brother, my father, Napster, my friends, my friends’ dads, the NME, Rough Trade, Uncut, Artrocker, Myspace, Internet Blogs.
I can roughly say, that the above list, was the order in which I began to hear and find music from. Today during my Shakespeare on Film lecture I tried desperately to consider how people will find music next. The lecture was long and drawn out, we analysed (badly) different film versions of King Lear. I couldn’t care for King Lear. I had at one point enjoyed Shakespeare, as Dylan says I dig Shakespeare, but there’s something about doing it now. The lecturers seem fine, their motives are all pure, and one of them bears the resemblance of an eccentric, introverted, literature junkie whom I, unfortunately or not, could see myself as one day. But their subject lacks enjoyability, due to the fact that we are to rush through the most recognised fictions of the written word, in under a week.
One week is all we get to read, analyse, procrastinate, dwell upon and generally forge opinion on these texts. Sure you can read each one in that time, and sure I should have read them all, already. But I haven’t. I read the classics, or at least what I thought to be the classics, but apparently, according to the less enjoyable lecturer, King Lear is the be all and end all of Shakespearean literature. And I’ve got on fine never having read it.
I gazed out of the window and in the distance with the right kind of eye; I managed to see hills, bare hills with trees delicately painting the horizon. How far was that? It couldn’t have been more than ten miles, maybe fifteen. And that was outside of London. I could see out of London. That was terribly depressing. London provides a king of bubble for me, some would call it ignorance and naivety, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. London instead provides a sort of boundary for me, a boundary whereby I feel safe, myself.
London was of course, naturally, meant to be on that list at the forefront of this entry. London is the dream of bands up and down the country. Their dreams lie here, to success, signings and glory. In the months I’ve resided here, I’ve been to one evening of unsigned music. One. And that was terrible; it is indeed a terrible shame when a band’s performance earns credibility by simply walking off stage and waiting for the second band to follow.
The second band must be the worst band to have ever existed. Their music sounds like absolutely everything else, yet done badly, their singer has a voice that won’t ever get him on the radio, and their music was text-book indie music that would only appeal to a Radio 1 Razorlight loving audience. And that of course was their audience, not this unwillingly pretentious group of musical purists. They might as well have walked in and mashed up a Beyonce track with Bob The Builder. This was Dylan’s suicide in 65, except this time the audience was right.
But as I said it made the first band seem like god’s gift to music, suddenly they had adorning fans rushing up to them, scrapping for autographs, buying records, tshirts, signing up to mailing lists, scribbling myspace addresses on each others’ arms. And this level of success will continue to exist, for as long as they support their followup act.
It isn’t a matter of professionanlity or lack of desire for a libel case that protects their sorry selves from having their name grace this page. It is purely because, no matter how hard I try, I cannot even remember their names, and I am usually very good at remembering band names. Music is, after all my forte, I may not be able to argue a good case of politics, I could not tell you anything much about literature other than what I read, and I couldn’t tell you what white balance really is, but I can certainly assist, argue and thoroughly enjoy music.
The one compelling and pleasant part of that evening, not so long ago, was the moment shared with my dear friend Marc - as the whole night was - but my highlight as I’m sure he would agree was the moment, a moment I’ve experienced many times before, the moment atop of Primrose Hill.
To anyone who has yet to go and experience it, I recommend it to all immediately, go from Camden and walk up the hill and don’t look back. Don’t look back. When you are finally atop of the hill. Stop, look down and then back up and then turn around.
The whole world actually stops. Just for a split second, when you really can’t believe that your eyes have created this vision for you. It settles you in a way that no writer could ever describe, no poet could ever rhyme and no songwriter could ever sing. I never take photographs atop of Primrose Hill, it just wouldn’t be right.
The only sound then, masked delicately and distantly by traffic that seems buried in the next village over rather than in Central London just a few hundred metres away. The only sound that lies beneath that mask is my imagined rendition of So Here We Are.
So Here We Are is the perfect city song; the song that encapsulates that feeling, as closely as possible to real life. Listen to it again. Listen to it when you get in. Listen to it on an Ipod when walking around Canary Wharf, listen to it when walking down a London high street at night, or listen to it when you wake up to a sunrise across the Thames. Listen to it, and when you’re done with that, listen to it again.
