Glory, glory

Putting aside a few things, to take the train to Sheffield tomorrow – I am only seeing my analyst live once a month, at the moment – I recall that on my last trip I was looking through all the pockets for a pair of earphones, which had somehow gotten misplaced…

Look, here: tangled with older sets of earphones, something with a rather trendy shape, sort of like tiny hairdryers. I think they're the earphones I bought in some airport or other.

I disentangle and wrap up three pairs, then take the newest ones and plug them in, looking for the jack socket… just testing.

And… at first I think, a bit loud. And then – oh this is gorgeous: yes it really is.

Stunning sound. Chris Wood's version of Jerusalem, which was making me sad a couple of weeks ago, but now with such rich, vivid tones and undertones…

Mesmerising.

•••

1980. I am in San Francisco, I am young (about 23) and, I think I can say with some accuracy, cute.  I mean, yeah, clueless, but… cute.

It is a San Francisco Halloween – perhaps my first, or second? – and I have met some guys who Actually Own a major Bar, which means they are extraordinarily cool. Older of course, but hot. Everyone is gradually getting ready for a Halloween party, so there is much delay and smoking of pot as people change their minds on costumes and times and places and drinks and whatnot…

I am sitting on a white leather sofa with men who come and go and discuss plans. One of the guys sits down and shows me something new that is very, very cool: a Walkman. Apparently Sony has created a leetle teeny cassette player, and you can play whatever you want, and walk around with it. You listen through the earphones – here, go ahead, try them.

I have never seen such a thing…

But what is absolutely, utterly amazing, for me as an ambitious if rather lazy musician, is that when you play a new album I've never heard of – Guilty, by Barbra Streisand and a blown-dried Bee Gee, with a trendy white-on-white cover – the shimmering partials are so beautiful, it is just…

My impression – and everybody's impression: none of us have ever heard anything like it, the fidelity is extraordinary, and the album full of high, sweet sounds – is that I've never, ever, heard music like this.

Yes, okay, the pot probably helped… but really: what sounds.

•••

It's been true for a few years: I don't seem to care about music quite as much. I teach, I write, but often I can just… well, take it or leave it. (Would my colleagues, my students, be scandalised by my apostasy? Let's not tell them then.)

But this… it is past midnight, I should be in bed, but I'm still just… listening:

Miles Davis, Nefertiti.

Nightnoise, Bring Me Back a Song.

I haven't heard some of these things in ages, they take me back to… well, the 80s.

Tippett, String quartet no. 2.

Kate Bush, A Coral Room.

Slightly drunk with some of the music by now, I think.

Marco Beasley, Tu bella ca lu tieni lu pettu tundu.

Dieter Schnebel, Schubert-Phantaisie.

The sounds just glow.

Sun Kil Moon, Trucker's Atlas.

Gamelan of Cirebon….

•••

And now it is past one, I really have to go to bed…

Earphones.

Who'd've thought it.

•••

I'll go to bed in a bit……………..