I'm something of a discophile. I don't collect LP's, but for a 23 year old, I am awfully stuck to the old format of compact disc albums, not at all embracing the digital era. But of course, bringing all my CD's across the sea wasn't really an option. So I downloaded all the music I own onto my laptop. With all that music so easy to reach, I find myself listening to albums that have been left to collect dust for years.
When I began to plan this blog entry, I meant it to be about
Cornelis Vreeswijk, whom I'm coming back to after years of thinking him a bit too crude. Now though, I will simply recommend that you listen to his
Bellman interpretations (
Sjuttonde balladen särskilt) and leave that subject. Because what I want to tell you about now, is the first CD I ever owned. It has been abandoned and forgotten, for years and years, but never given away. It was given to me way back in, most likely, 1997, by my grandmother. I had wished for a CD with classical music. It seems very strange to me today, since I eventually turned out a rock girl, but such was my wish; before I discovered my first idols
ABBA and
The Beatles, long before
Bruce Springsteen and
Alanis Morissette, what feels like a lifetime before
Håkan Hellström and
Rufus Wainwright, I unwrapped a collection of classical music and played it on my parents' stereo - since I didn't have one of my own.
And listening to it today, I find myself recognizing every tune, every stroke of the violins, every key pressed on the pianos. Mozart, Shubert,
Samuel Barber and
Alessandro Marcello; all these composers' works, that I obviously must have listened to time and time again all those years ago when I was someone else, stir the same emotions in me now as they did then; as powerful as any modern pop or rock record ever has. I usually give ABBA the credit for being the start of my long, loving relationship with music, or the times when I would hear my mother play songs by Cornelis or
LALLA HANSON on the guitar. (
"Jag tog upp ett munspel ur min tomma, slitna ficka, och jag blåste trött när Anna sjöng en blues" is perhaps the first single line of lyric that I fell utterly in love with. It was stuck in my head for years before I found a recording of the song. I still think of my mum playing guitar when I hear it, even though I haven't seen her play since I was a child.)
But sitting here typing this, with soft piano music by
Erik Satie sounding in my headset, I send a grateful thought to my dear late grandma, without whom I might have never had an appreciation for the sheer beauty of music - not confined to three minute hitsongs, however great, or just as melodies to clever, heart wrenching lyrics, or even as songs to sing together in choir, at campfires or with mum in the living room - but music in and of itself.
Så, tack för CD:n, mormor. Jag gillar den verkligen.
Erik Satie
