As I write this I’m listening to a playlist, “Top songs of 2019”, complied by the streaming music service Spotify, emailed to me with the hook “Here’s your year in music” and I couldn’t resist. It said I listened to 726 songs. I’m also drinking, not down at the bar, but at my desk. Because that’s what I do. That story is all wrapped up in the great gift of music, which I’ve had a love affair with since as far back as I can remember.
My history
begins in France, 1957, when I was seven. My father purchased a Telefunken–the latest technology in radio and music then. German made, it was the precursor to today’s home entertainment center. Things were much different then (or not). Our Telefunkin was a piece of furniture, handsome, about four-feet long that combined an FM/AM radio with a turntable (record player) and storage of records.
My father loved to sing and singing. To the day he died it defined him.
He had a beautiful baritone voice … but I digress.
So, my love affair with music goes way back to my childhood. Music, family, love, safety, security, and happiness are all linked. All my basic needs are connected to music. Happy songs as well as sad songs. In short: music is love. (shout out to David Crosby.)
Music and personality
Sam Gosling, in his 2008 book Snoop, explores the connection between music preferences and personality (pages 22-3, 63-5, 79, 156-9, 162-3).
2019 in music
What Spotify and Gosling’s research informed me of, via music, is that I’m pretty much the same person I was ten, twenty, thirty, years ago. In fact, all the way back to the beginnings of me.
Truth is
I’m a romantic. In other words: “Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature”.
