Tag: music

67 seas i et sommerminde/67 seas in a summer memory

Jeg kan ikke huske årstallet nu. Jeg ved, det har været omkring 1994 eller senere, for jeg var startet i gymnasiet. Jeg kan også huske, at det var sommer, og at jeg havde fået fritidsarbejde på den lokale tankstation. Jeg var i den der fase, hvor ens hjerne og hjerte ræser derudaf hurtigere, end fornuften kan følge med, hvis den overhovedet eksisterer i den alder. Det var den rasende blanding af svimlende kærlighed og total selvdestruktion, som regerer nogle teenagere, og jeg var fuldstændig uden holdepunkt i orkanens hærgen.

Det er hundrede år og en sommer siden, men nogle gange husker jeg det, som er jeg stadig midt i denne kaotiske tid. En dag, som i dag, hvor jeg kobler headsettet i telefonen og klikker ind på Spotify for at høre lidt musik, mens jeg gør rent. Hvor er jeg dog blevet gammel, tænker jeg, mens jeg skriver dette. Så uendeligt langt fra den tid. Nu, hvor livet er madpakker, huskelister, bureaukrati, klokkeslet og længslen efter ubrudt nattesøvn. Dengang var det pokker i vold og spring over afgrunde uden tanke for faldet. Dengang, i tredive graders varme, i min sorte Dizzy T-shirt og nye Doc Martens, under brændende sol midt i en skare af vilde fans.

Rutebilen fra Udkantsdanmark, der dengang endnu ikke var navngivet således, kørte ikke til tiden, så far hentede mig på tanken, da jeg havde fri, og kørte mig ind til Odense. Jeg husker ikke, hvad vi talte om, men husker, at jeg klædte om på bagsædet: de nye Doc Martens, de fede solbriller, T-shirten. Han satte mig af på Brandts Klædefabrik, hvor koncerten var. Det må have været før, Dizzy Mizz Lizzy blev helt store. Jeg kan huske, at jeg mødtes med venner, men ikke hvem. Og så husker jeg følelsen af at stå der i mængden, pokker i voldsk, den totale overgivelse i musikken, i følelsen, det svimlende, turen ned i afgrunden og tilbage til balancegangen på en følelsesmæssig silketråd. De var fede dengang, de er fede nu. Musikken er eviggyldig – teenageårene kun et blink i tidens kapløb med livet.

Jeg klikkede ind på en tilfældig playliste, var i humør til rock, valgte en liste, der hed noget i retning af: rock du kender. Og det var sandt. Jeg kendte det. Dizzys helt unikke klang, der med et snuptag greb mig om livet og sendte mig tilbage til den fortabte sommerdag. Waterline, Silverflame, 67 seas in your eyes … tidløst og dog uforanderligt i minder.

Hvem var jeg dengang? På mange måder ligeså håbløst fortabt i mig selv, som jeg er nu. Hvad har så ændret sig? Fornuft? Ansvarlighed?

Den eftermiddag i hed sommervarme i alt for varme Doc Martens og med den typiske teenagefølelse af alt eller intet, den dag kom tilbage nu på en helt almindelig hverdag med jobsøgning, rengøring og pasning af en influenzasyg bettemand på sofaen med Lille Nørd og Hr. Skæg. Hvordan kom jeg hertil? Og hvad kunne der være sket, hvis den eftermiddag for hundrede år og en sommer siden var gået helt anderledes?

Jeg kan ikke huske, hvad der kom før eller hvad, der kom efter. Jeg kan kun huske turen dertil, at jeg havde været på arbejde, og hvordan jeg stod der ved scenen på Brandts. Fornemmelsen af bagende varme, fed musik og en crowd, der gik amok. Et tilfældigt minde, et af så mange, men stadig unikt. Unikt dengang og i dette nu. Hvordan den pige dengang blev til mig nu. Hvordan meget ændrer sig, men ikke alt. Så jeg fylder gulvspanden og går amok til 67 seas, og livet går videre.

…………………………………………………..

I don’t remember the year now. I know it was around 1994 or later because I had begun the gymnasium. I also remember that it was summer, and that I had my after-school job at the local gas station. I was in that phase where your brain and heart race on faster than reason can follow, if that even exists at that age. It was the furious mixture of dizzying love and total self-destruction which governs some teenagers, and I was completely without grip in the ravage of the hurricane.

It was one hundred years and a summer ago, but sometimes I remember it was if I am still in the middle of this chaotic time. On a day like today as I plug in the headset to the phone and click my way to Spotify to listen to some music while I clean. How old I have become, I think, as I write this. So endlessly far from the that time. Now, as life is boxed lunched, check lists, bureaucracy, set times and the longing for an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Back then it was devil-may-care and leaps across chasms without thoughts on the fall. Back then, in 30 degrees Celsius, in my black Dizzy t-shirt, beneath the burning sun in the middle of a wild crowd of fans.

The bus from rural Denmark, which back then hadn’t been named so, didn’t leave on time, so Dad picked me up at the gas station, when I was done working, and drove me to Odense. I don’t remember, what we talked about, but I remember that I got dressed on the backseat: the new Doc Martens, the cool sunglasses, the t-shirt. He dropped me off at Brandts Klædefabrik, where the concert was. It must have been before Dizzy Mizz Lizzy got really famous. I remember, I met up with friend, but not whom. And then I remember the feeling of being there in the crowd, devil-may-care, the complete surrender to the music, in the feeling, the dizzying, the rush down the chasm and back to balancing on the emotional silk thread. They were great then, they are great now. The music is eternal – the teenage years just a blink in time’s race against life.

I clicked on a random playlist, was in the mood for rock, chose a list called something like: Rock you know. And it was true. I knew it. The completely unique sound of Dizzy, which with a quick pull grabbed me around the waist and sent me back to that lost summer’s day. Waterline, Silverflame, 67 seas in your eyes … timeless, yet unalterable in memories.

Who was I back then? In many ways as hopelessly lost in myself as I am now. What has changed? Reason? Responsibility?

That afternoon in hot summer’s warmth in way too warm Doc Martens and with the typical teenage feeling of all or nothing, that day came back now on a completely ordinary everyday with job search, cleaning and taking care of the flu-stricken little guy on the sofa with Lille Nørd and Hr.  Skæg. How did I get here? And what could have been if that afternoon one hundred years and a summer ago had gone differently?

I don’t remember what came before or what came after. I only remember the drive there, that I had been at work and how I stood there by the stage at Brandts. The sense of scorching heat, great music and a crowd gone wild. A random memory, one of so many, but still quite unique. Unique then and now. How that girl back then became me now. How a lot changes, but not everything. And so I fill up the cleaning bucket and run amok with 67 seas, and life goes on.

 

 

Billede fra http://fototv.dk/idolerne-fra-dizzy-mizz-lizzy-endelig-foreviget/

 

Spring clean for the May queen …

I realize that for a blog about literature I write an awful lot about music. Of course, to me, those two are one and the same, one you see, one you hear, they both end up in the same spot; in your aesthetic bodysoulheartbraincore.

I had a few hours to spare today, it doesn’t happen too often, but today it did, and I decided to spend those hours cleaning/washing/tidying/sorting stuff. And as everybody knows, those things are best done while listening to good and loud music.

I fetched my red and shiny Sony earphones (some teenage stuff I will never outgrow) and scrolled through the play-lists on Spotify. Ah, yes, Led Zeppelin Celebration Day Live.

This is another example of something whole, something perfection. Excellent music, excellent lyrics, goosebumps and happiness, completely transported by this music.

This fascination I share with my mom and dad. They grew up on Led Zeppelin and gave me this for a birth present. This band has followed me through my life, adding a soundtrack to many big events. My parents’ song is Thank You. One of my Soundtrack To My Life-songs is Ramble On.

I never tire of listening to this band, and last year, I was honored, humbled and ecstatic when I had the chance to see Robert Plant live in Odense. When among his new songs, he began playing Whole Lotta Love I have to admit, I cried; openly and unashamed. I was standing there with my mom and dad, we shared this amazing experience, they having followed this band since their teenage-years, and me, their daughter, having grown up with this music, now an adult myself – and we could stand there and see this show together after so many years – what a legend! What an extraordinary feat!

No name

What I am trying to get to is how some things stay with us a lifetime and beyond. Some things are so embedded in us that they never change. We may change, our lives change, people around us change, but these things remain, intact and shiny like indestructible diamonds in our core. And so often, these things are artwork. Music, images, great stories. Something we have perceived and taken via our senses, something come to us via aesthetics. How is it that these things last like that?

Diamonds in my core, just off the top of my head: The Never-Ending Story, Narnia, Gasolin, Anne Frank, Lord of the Rings, Illusions, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Leonard Cohen, Salvador Dalí…

There are many, forming their very own diamond mine in my soul. These diamonds shape who we are, and they never disappear. I’ll bet when I’m 98, sitting in my rocking chair, looking back at my life, I’ll still hit play on Led Zeppelin and feel as I always did, 17, 36 or 98. Diamonds are forever.

[spotify id=”spotify:track:1kOfZShwvYeN4b4UocSGMm” width=”300″ height=”380″ /]

Leonard Cohen

I am hopelessly in love with Leonard Cohen.

I admit it, no hesitation. He is everything, he has everything, he is perfection. No less.

I must have been seven or eight years old when my dad told me to come and listen to a song. He did this often. My dad loves music more than life. I am bottle-fed on music; Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath. It’s in my blood.

However, this wasn’t Deep or Led. This was Cohen. My dad cranked the volume, and there it was:

I remember this moment, years and years later. It came back to me when I (re)discovered Leonard Cohen for myself. Older, and wiser, perhaps, I was now a broader experience, somehow. Deeper, still as magical. Now I appreciated the lyrics as much as the sound.

And here they take their sweet repast
While house and grounds dissolve
And one by one the guests are cast
Beyond the garden wall

Sound and words come together into perfection, transcending all what ought to be humanly possible. This is Leonard Cohen.

And then he announced a concert in Denmark, 2013. And it was possibly the greatest concert, I have ever attended. And in the middle of the show, I turned to my beloved spouse and announced: I am writing my master thesis about his lyrics.

And I did. 108 pages about the aesthetic experience of Leonard Cohen’s lyrics. It was beautiful, and it was painful. I spent half a year diving deep into his words, swimming through poems, lyrics and novels, going deeper, resting on this line or that, turning it over and over and back again.

I get chills when I listen to his music, when his liquid poetry takes over and stops time for a moment.

The light came through the window,
Straight from the sun above,
And so inside my little room
There plunged the rays of Love.

In streams of light I clearly saw
The dust you seldom see,
Out of which the Nameless makes
A Name for one like me.

..

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

..

Ah I don’t believe you’d like it,
You wouldn’t like it here.
There ain’t no entertainment
and the judgements are severe.
The Maestro says it’s Mozart
but it sounds like bubble gum
when you’re waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

..

Trying to decide which to showcase, I realize it would be every song he ever wrote, every poem, every line, if I were to do him justice. So I’ll make do with these quotes. You can read up on it yourself for the rest of them.

I only wanted to tell you that I really, really adore Leonard Cohen.