My Life, My Music

Sunday morning, and I've got the frenetic beat of New Order's "Age of Consent" playing in the background. The sun is shining, and I'm in a semi medication induced haze. Life is good.. no, I'm not about to become a druggie, thank you for your concern. It's the music that's lifting me.

Kat and other friends had expressed amazement at one point or another at how much I seemed to know about music, the trivia, the bits of information, the meaning behind the songs. I guess the only reason I could give for it was that it was music that kept me going in the very confused and turbulent times of my teenage years. My home was always filled with music, with mum's cassette tapes (who remembered those relics? As my friend, Jin, remarked on our recent trip to Manado, Indonesia, "WHOA!! I just saw that they're still selling cassette tapes!!") playing as she pottered around the house, my brothers blasting their individual choices of music. One had more contemporary choices, while the other was into the more moody stuff of Lou Reed and Ziggy Stardust (now known as David Bowie), but both dissected the meaning behind the songs.

As I started secondary school then located just outside Orchard Road (the main shopping area of Singapore), I had access to bookstores like the old Times The Bookstore (which has since been reduced to just a handful of branches), where I was able to browse through music based magazines like Smash Hits and Number One. I devoured every bit of information in the mags, reading the lyrics to discover the meaning behind songs, being exposed to artistes that I've never heard before back then in Singapore like the Cocteau Twins, Billy Bragg, Siouxie and The Banshees, etc. Even bands like New Order and The Cure hardly received any airplay on the local radio stations which catered largely to the mainstream taste, and even then, there was an official playlist that was to be strictly adhered to so as to prevent "social chaos". Such as the times.

As I struggled through secondary school, managing the teenage angst, I started delving into the darker side of music, and was fascinated with the early deaths of musicians, and was particularly fixated by the story of Joy Division's Ian Curtis. Ian was a typical man, a flawed one with the usual weaknesses, and he had hung himself in May 1980 just before Joy Division was to embark on their American tour, but also at time when his marriage was faltering and his epilepsy was worsening. That started the dark phase of my life when I became obsessed with suicide being a viable option. I'd subscribed to the rock and roll mantra of "live hard, die young and leave a good looking corpse". There had been so many rock and roll icons who had gone that way, and Jim Morrison of The Doors was another character whom I grew to admire. Like Ian Curtis, Jim wasn't just a musician to me, but a poet and writer.

Ian's songs were filled with imageries of isolation and dejection, themes that I had identified with as I struggled to find my identity in school. I started dabbling with writing stuff of own, as I became more interested in literature. It was really nothing to shout about, but what I didn't realise was, the dark words of the longing for death, escapism, feeling of being rejected and unloved.. they all actually gave me a release (albeit temporary) from the downward spiral I was going through, and possibly saved me from any worse harm I was doing to myself. So my answer to the question about my knowledge of music, is that it saved my life. Without it, I might already have been be a pile of ash.

What role did music play in your life, especially when you were growing up? Do share it by leaving your comments below, and if you like this entry, please click on the "Like" button above. Cheers!