“Ain’t it funny how a melody can bring back a memory
Take you to another place in time
Completely change your state of mind”
Clint Black, “State of Mind”
Music. Melody, words, rhythm carry the echoes of another time, another place. Korea has been on my mind a lot lately. Daegu, Busan, Gyeongju, Jecheon, the West Sea Islands, Seoul. I spent a lot of time, during my Daegu days, lost in my music. Especially when I traveled alone. In a world where the language is foreign and the K-pop almost unbearable, my music created an alternative sound-track. Now, those songs haunt me. The songs that remind me of those walks, so many walks, at Suseong Lake – rain, snow, sunshine and full-on blossom-spring. The songs I used to listen to on the bus to work and when I went walking alone. Songs of adventure, songs of homesickness. Chris Chameleon’s “Ontvlugting” from the Ingrid Jonker poem. And “Bitterbessie Dagbreek” (this one also reminds me of Constantia). And “Ek Herhaal Jou”. And “Die Lied Van Die Gebreekte Riete”. Karen Zoid’s “Maak Nie Regtig Saak Nie” and “Die Lug is Grys”. Koos Kombuis – “Lisa se Klavier”, “Liefde uit die Oude Doos”, “Mona Lisa”. Every song from the first season of Glee. “Wild Boys” and “Ordinary World” by Duran Duran. Orisha’s “Represent Cuba”.
Sometimes songs have more than one association. Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” also reminds me of being 13 in the Eastern Cape. They were the first international band – or at least the first one I knew about – to visit our little corner of South Africa after Apartheid. That song was the beginning of the change, the beginning of everything turning upside down. Or maybe the beginning of everything turning right-side up, really. Sometimes associations are entirely in one’s own head and one’s own unique context.
Every place I’ve lived has music. “Laid” by James will always be a Grahamstown song. There are so many Grahamstown songs. So much Tori. Saturday morning Boo!. Karma at the Box Theatre. Much later, the music of Fest – from Chris Chameleon to Gala Concerts and so many beautiful ballets. Ballets. Puccini makes me think of Daegu and, to a lesser extent, Cape Town but the ballets always take me back to the Guy Butler Theatre at the Grahamstown Monument.
“Lente in die Boland” reminds me, of course, of Stellenbosch. It makes me think of the beautiful train ride through from Cape Town to Stellenbosch and of wine tasting and yakka parties and stolen weeks spent at lectures and so very much debating. Less obviously, “N1 Roete” by Klopjag is a Cape Town and Stellenbosch song for me. It reminds me of the friend I first saw Klogjag with, at Dorp Street Theatre, in the ‘Bosch. It reminds me of living in Rondebosch, too. I used to have a flat where, on a clear day, I could look out towards the Stellenbosch/Somerset West/Durbanville mountains. Most Cape Town people are deeply attached to Table Mountain. Much as I love Table Mountain on a good day, especially from the city bowl, it is the mountains out past the Cape flats, towards Stellenbosch and Somerset West that make me homesick.
Pretty much everything by Freshly Ground makes me think of Cape Town, too. That first night, the first night after I moved to Cape Town, my friends dragged me out to the Independent Armchair Theatre in Obs to see a little-known local band. It was Freshly Ground. The next time I saw them was at concert at Kirstenbosch with 8000 people.
Sometimes associations cross over. Johnny Clegg, for example, live in the Guy Butler Theatre that amazing 2002 Fest, with the family of a dear friend at Spier and then, a few years later in Korea, part of the homesickness but also the hope and the realisation that I wanted nothing more than to return to Africa and never to leave again.
And now, there is a new association: Will Young’s “Evergreen” (yes, groan) will now forever remind me of Uganda. The DRC has a far more interesting song association, but in Northern Uganda we were followed by “Evergreen”. I don’t even like the song but from now on, it’ll always make me smile and remind me that the world is such a small place that there is really nothing all that unusual about Will Young’s “Evergreen” in a Lebanese Restaurant called The Cedars in Gulu in Northern Uganda.
“Ain’t it funny how a melody can bring back a memory
Take you to another place in time
Completely change your state of mind”
Clint Black, “State of Mind”
Music. Melody, words, rhythm carry the echoes of another time, another place. Korea has been on my mind a lot lately. Daegu, Busan, Gyeongju, Jecheon, the West Sea Islands, Seoul. I spent a lot of time, during my Daegu days, lost in my music. Especially when I traveled alone. In a world where the language is foreign and the K-pop almost unbearable, my music created an alternative sound-track. Now, those songs haunt me. The songs that remind me of those walks, so many walks, at Suseong Lake – rain, snow, sunshine and full-on blossom-spring. The songs I used to listen to on the bus to work and when I went walking alone. Songs of adventure, songs of homesickness. Chris Chameleon’s “Ontvlugting” from the Ingrid Jonker poem. And “Bitterbessie Dagbreek” (this one also reminds me of Constantia). And “Ek Herhaal Jou”. And “Die Lied Van Die Gebreekte Riete”. Karen Zoid’s “Maak Nie Regtig Saak Nie” and “Die Lug is Grys”. Koos Kombuis – “Lisa se Klavier”, “Liefde uit die Oude Doos”, “Mona Lisa”. Every song from the first season of Glee. “Wild Boys” and “Ordinary World” by Duran Duran. Orisha’s “Represent Cuba”.
Sometimes songs have more than one association. Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” also reminds me of being 13 in the Eastern Cape. They were the first international band – or at least the first one I knew about – to visit our little corner of South Africa after Apartheid. That song was the beginning of the change, the beginning of everything turning upside down. Or maybe the beginning of everything turning right-side up, really. Sometimes associations are entirely in one’s own head and one’s own unique context.
Every place I’ve lived has music. “Laid” by James will always be a Grahamstown song. There are so many Grahamstown songs. So much Tori. Saturday morning Boo!. Karma at the Box Theatre. Much later, the music of Fest – from Chris Chameleon to Gala Concerts and so many beautiful ballets. Ballets. Puccini makes me think of Daegu and, to a lesser extent, Cape Town but the ballets always take me back to the Guy Butler Theatre at the Grahamstown Monument.
“Lente in die Boland” reminds me, of course, of Stellenbosch. It makes me think of the beautiful train ride through from Cape Town to Stellenbosch and of wine tasting and yakka parties and stolen weeks spent at lectures and so very much debating. Less obviously, “N1 Roete” by Klopjag is a Cape Town and Stellenbosch song for me. It reminds me of the friend I first saw Klogjag with, at Dorp Street Theatre, in the ‘Bosch. It reminds me of living in Rondebosch, too. I used to have a flat where, on a clear day, I could look out towards the Stellenbosch/Somerset West/Durbanville mountains. Most Cape Town people are deeply attached to Table Mountain. Much as I love Table Mountain on a good day, especially from the city bowl, it is the mountains out past the Cape flats, towards Stellenbosch and Somerset West that make me homesick.
Pretty much everything by Freshly Ground makes me think of Cape Town, too. That first night, the first night after I moved to Cape Town, my friends dragged me out to the Independent Armchair Theatre in Obs to see a little-known local band. It was Freshly Ground. The next time I saw them was at concert at Kirstenbosch with 8000 people.
Sometimes associations cross over. Johnny Clegg, for example, live in the Guy Butler Theatre that amazing 2002 Fest, with the family of a dear friend at Spier and then, a few years later in Korea, part of the homesickness but also the hope and the realisation that I wanted nothing more than to return to Africa and never to leave again.
And now, there is a new association: Will Young’s “Evergreen” (yes, groan) will now forever remind me of Uganda. The DRC has a far more interesting song association, but in Northern Uganda we were followed by “Evergreen”. I don’t even like the song but from now on, it’ll always make me smile and remind me that the world is such a small place that there is really nothing all that unusual about Will Young’s “Evergreen” in a Lebanese Restaurant called The Cedars in Gulu in Northern Uganda.