Music

I am always trying to introduce my boys to old music so that I can broaden their appreciation of style and genres.

We were in the car this morning and we listened to Moby. One of his songs "Honey" brought back a memory for me of a time when I got picked up from an airport and was driven to New York, the song was playing as we drove over a bridge and saw the Statue of Liberty.

I love the way songs evoke memory. Bruce Springsteens song "The streets of Philadelphia" was playing in an old 1950's taxi cab as Tracy and I were driven along through fields of sugar cane in the Dominican Republic in 1994. Every time I hear it, it takes me back to that time.

I remember as a child living on East Bread Street in East Belfast listening to my parents album with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture on it, this would have been pre 1976, the music takes me back there, it also reminds me of battles and empires, struggles and victory. It had a write up on the back of the album explaining the story.

I remember sitting in a bar called "Daniels" in a place called Chadwell St Mary in 1987 listening to "No woman No cry" by Bob Marley whilst loads of drunk skinheads danced around in front of me, believe it or not it was a beautiful moment. Violent, aggressive looking people dancing to chilled out peace loving music, it was almost paradoxical.

At my wedding in 1992 we had a live band and about 200 guests at the evening reception. Tracy and I got up on the stage to say goodbye and the crowd started shouting "give us a song!" they had obviously never heard me sing before. So never being one to turn down an egotistical moment I asked the band if they knew "Wild Thing" by the Troggs, they did so I sang it to Tracy live on stage. Needless to say the crowd went wild and I felt like Freddy Mercury at a Queen concert, but Tracy quickly dragged me of the stage as it was our honeymoon night and we had more important things to do than fan my musical ego.

When I was in Chelmsford Prison on New Years Eve 1989 a prison guard sarcastically played "I'm living in a box" as we moved into the new decade, I can't remember who wrote that song! he abused us with music, how sad.

I love Music