Wednesday May 9th - Fasting

I must remember not to have any breakfast tomorrow, since I'm fasting for a couple of blood tests. These are largely to check out a couple of symptoms I've been having, so hopefully it will give the doctor the information to set out the appropriate treatment. I really hope this doesn't mean more medication as I've had enough of that over the last year or so.

Work is still very boring and demoralising, and I've never been someone who can just "go home and collect the money". If things don't liven up soon I'm going to have to start looking around as the current lack of activity is corroding my CV as well as my soul. I'm having a bit of a general malaise at present - aside from work, life in the flat is a bit dull and the weather is rubbish. Makes me wish I was back in the USA !

The bright spots in my life are my new relationship and my music. I have to thank rock music for everything really - it has seen me through many tough times and I literally wouldn't be alive today without it. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way - you've only got to think of all the "power of music" songs there are, from Chuck's "Rock and Roll Music" and "Roll Over Beethoven" through Lou Reed's "Rock'n'roll", Argent's "God Gave Rock and Roll To You" etc. etc. So what is it about this great music of ours which has given us so much ?

A clue lies in the work of a group I've been listening to a lot lately, the Flamin' Groovies. They recorded five classic albums in the 70s, from the Stones-y "Flamingo" and "Teenage Head" through to the 60s "beat boom" sounds of their three Sire albums. They play sixties-based music with 70s power and sophistication. But also their latter albums have a sustained atmosphere of melancholy quite unlike the brash optimism of their sixties' reference points. Whereas Lennon's "Please Please Me" was a bold indication of working-class contempt for repressed sexual mores, the Groovies' version is a lament for simple humanity amongst the jaded sexual paranoia of the post-feminist 70s world. Similarly, "You Tore Me Down" - possibly the most beautiful straight pop song ever written - is clearly based upon "She Loves You" but replaces the bubbliness of the former with lines like "Now I'm all alone / You're far away". This emotional honesty, plus the endless riches in the music, makes this music playable over and over again. This is the sort of thing which, in a very real everyday sense, saves souls.  

Children being born over the next few years have a great treat coming to them. Their parents are the offspring of sixties' buffs like me, so have retreated back into pre-rock popular music (the X Factor et al) as the only act of rebellion open to them. Their children can in turn rebel via discovering Elvis, The Beatles, The Stones etc. Maybe in 15 years' time there will be another mass outbreak of musical bohemia. Wouldn't that be great ?