Sometimes, or maybe quite often, Music flows into your life when least expecting it. It’s not an intrusion, but something undefinable.
Midway through having dinner and jotting down the thoughts below, a movie called Dear Ewan Hansen- a kinda weird musical- came on TV.
Being an extremely superstitious person, I saw this as a sign to continue writing and be guided by whoever was thinking for my left hand...
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It’s an understatement to say that these are extremely tough times for many in Hong Kong.
Having pretty much silenced music, ‘live’ and otherwise, doesn’t help.
It doesn’t help to make other things happen organically.
The absence of music robs many of inspiration and motivation and the passion to go forward and do instead of being numbed and double downing on everything that doesn’t matter.
Music can fix things. Help one get from here to there. Help to catch tears in a paper cup. Help to break the fall. It’s therapeutic.
It makes one wonder whether those government officials who seem to have a problem with people in this city having fun, have ever been out where there’s ‘live’ music- and maybe even danced?
Auntie Carrie? Madam Regina?
A few short years ago, going to a hotel lounge, where there would usually be a resident chanteuse belting out some cheese backed by a trio or quartet might have been considered “uncool”, and a place inhabited by very rich people.
Jeez, how I miss those days.
This was a time when one could walk around where music played without a mask or had to be concerned if you had been given the correct number of vaccinations.
No one enjoys when going out becomes cause for worry.
How the hell did this concept sneak up on Gnok Gnoh?
It was a different Hong Kong back then where one could walk up to a beautiful stranger and start talking to her, or she could bite you on your neck and purr as she suddenly started to grow a beard.
Whatever it was, this was life and it was free-form living like a free-flowing jam session without rules and regulations- rules like only being able to take one’s mask off when seated, but putting the mask back on every time one stands up, and groups of masked people of not more than eight- for luck- passing like masked ships in the night.
Getting back to back in the day, if lounge singers weren’t your cuppa tea, there were always other places where music was being played.
Maybe the musicians weren’t great, but these were fun places to visit and with music giving them a personality- the venues, that is.
Meanwhile, way back in the day when travelling here, there and everywhere with Marty McFly and Doc, the only people who wore masks were the bad guys so they wouldn’t be recognised when holding up a stagecoach or robbing a bank.
There were good guys like the Lone Ranger, Zorro, Green Lantern and Batman who wore masks, but these were over their eyes. It was a fashion ‘thing’.
No matter where we travelled there was music.
One time, Marty went back in time, was known as “Calvin Klein” and played Johnny B.Goode at a school prom before anyone had even heard the song. Probably not even Chuck Berry.
You see, the hills, and everywhere else have been alive with some form of music since the world began.
Beatlemania wouldn’t have happened unless all those girls heard John, Paul, George and Ringo shaking their mop tops, performing ‘live’ and started screaming hysterically.
Those bobbysoxers wouldn’t have swooned and cried over Sinatra and Elvis unless they heard them sing- to them- and in front of them.
Just maybe the strongest antidote against whatever is ailing Gnok Gnoh these days is a shot of Rock and Roll and rhythm and blues...
After all...
* Music brings people together.
* Music puts you in touch with yourself.
* Music takes you anywhere you want to go.
* Music makes you feel alive.
* Music is available without a prescription.
* Music has its own language which everyone can understand.
* Music is whatever, wherever and whenever.
* You can disappear into music...and maybe just stay there.
