The Aardvark Blog
You can go back
You can go back
Last Wednesday as I was driving into work in a somewhat subdued mood (don't let's go there), I was avoiding the news and instead turned on my Car CD player. Out blasted the opening of Baba O'Riley by The Who, and I was immediately transported back nearly fifty years to the person I was when I first heard 'Who's Next' a few years after its release. Whilst all of us loved Led Zep and Black Sabbath, and my friend Tim Duvall introduced us to the Beach Boys and Creedence, The Who were my band; I had found them first amongst my contemporaries, and pulling out the poster and ticket info from the 'Live at Leeds' album felt like a personal ritual.
That is the great thing about music. It can return you to a place in time like no other art form. Books, I find are never exactly where you left them. If you re-read a favourite book ten years later - say Brideshead or On the Road, it will feel strangely different from your memory of your earlier reading. Some books skittle away completely. I find that I now have no time for Wodehouse (whom I loved), and no wish to re-read Chandler or Hammett. Like the elves in Lord of the Rings, they have passed beyond my shore and have no more to say to me.
Ethel is threatening to re-read Lord of the Rings as preparation for the next four years, but whilst I can see the temptation I am going to resist going full on fantasy. Perhaps what I need is something more New Yorker derived - perhaps an Edith Templeton or, God forbid a William Maxwell (only to be approached if feeling very strong). Or maybe the time has come to let Isaac Asimov back into my life. I feel the pull of the Foundation series, or the Rest of the Robots.
Whilst I make my choice I am going to pull out 'Who's Next' from the rack and list to some of the other tracks.'Won't Be Fooled Again' seems rather too much on the money, so perhaps one of the others. And I will be back in Nelson House once more, a lifetime's choices ahead and the courage and ignorance of youth in my veins. Semper invictus.
Published by Aardvark Books Ltd on (modified )
Latest Posts
A trip to London to meet old friends
Frankfurt state of mind
Why We Do What We Do
The Voynich Effect
Road Repairs, Scarecrow Sunday, Infantilism, Bank Holiday Vide Grenier,