Music, for me, is a way of time travel. Some songs (like thikku thikku from movie dhaam dhoom,remix version of oru naalil from movie pudhupettai) remind me of the great old period where we listened to songs on radio. I accidentally got to listen to those 2 songs on radio for the first time and then remember waiting (yes,I did wait) for it to be played again. Those were the period when I followed the top 20 songs on various radio channels
during weekends hoping for my favourite song to top the charts. During those time, New year was always associated with top 100 countdown in radio mirchi that played from the eve of dec 31st till 12 am on new year day. Some albums go hand in hand with the video games that I was playing at that point. Moonu album reminds me of NFS most wanted.Looking back, Both of them smelled heavily of metal (I have non-existent knowledge on music,so apologies if I got the genre wrong). I remember comparatively recent memories of albums getting released exclusively on radio (especially anirudh’s) and listening to them for the first time.
Sometimes I try to get back the experience of first time listening of a song,that went off due to the familiarity that rose from repeated hearing and also the visual experience/perception that got added to the song after watching the song video in movie. The unfamiliarity that we had while listening to a song for the first time where we were yet to grasp the structure of the song, lyric,the various layers of it,etc, is something I yearn to get back.
Having understood the power of songs as a time period holder/strong memory holder, I made sure that I had the memory of my first love in life associated with a song so that I could remember them both for the rest of the lifetime. There released a song,when I was in the phase of love,which I guessed would be a really good piece of music & might act as a time capsule for my first love (won’t tell you which song it is).I waited and listened to the song for the first time along with the girl that I loved. I knew that memory would come with me for the rest of my life even though she’s gone now.
My greatest fear is running out of new music to listen to. Also,the periodic sadness of a great song whose preciousness gets diminished over repeated hearing. Probably things in life are the same too. We can no longer get the experience of a particular period of life that we lived through in the past. However hard we try, it’s gone. We can only revisit them like how you do through pensieve in the world of Harry Potter. We can look back at it, chew it, and console ourselves with almost reliving the experience that it was.
Is life like a song? Like how a song grows over a period of time, where we slowly get to know the song, it’s lyric and the occasional discovery of a new layer from a assumedly familiar song. Probably, relationship is like a song, where we get to know about the person. The initial thrill of unfamiliarity about who the person actually is, giving way to getting to know them. Having beautiful memories with them and getting into them like a song. but, what if after a point,a person/relationship/life becomes like one of those favourite songs that got too familiar over repeated hearing and we no longer listen to it, save for a rare listen once in a long while? Probably time and experience will answer.
