Reality’s Bite Is Worse Without Bach

Friday is music - with a playlist. Today there's two. And lots of talk about CDs. Remember those...?

The new thing for me
is to get out of bed
early and play a CD.

Instrumental scores
to old action movies,
horrors, comedies –

anything and everything,
basically. And I just
adore it. And this is not

hurting. No, it’s quite
the opposite. It is healing.
This is my healing.

So that’s the poem. And I wrote that a week or so ago – put it up on Off The Tracks, the way I do with the poems, and most of my writing.

I’m not saying it’s a good poem, but it is a special poem. Special to me. It’s an explanation – a documentation of something that started a few months ago. Something I wouldn’t have ever predicted.

You see, I’m back buying CDs.

But only a very specific type and only at a set price.

I won’t pay more than $5 for a CD. And I am basically only buying soundtrack albums, instrumental scores. Well, I’ve busted outside of the lines a few times, but it’s the same wheelhouse. A couple of ambient compilations. A couple of Enya albums (because I love her music!) and some classical. I have to remind myself that I’m not allowed to buy things for the sake of buying them and so I’ve made these tram-lines for the burgeoning CD collection.

For some of this year, and maybe just the very end of last year, I’ve visited second hand stores, charity shops, the tip shop and I’ve got several searches saved on TradeMe.

Maybe I’ve bought one or two your old CDs? If you have some you want to part with – and they’re movie scores – let me know!

Collecting is, quite likely, a disease.

Collections are fluid.

I once owned something ludicrous like 7000 compact discs. Obviously, I was assisted in that disgusting number by being a reviewer for Wellington’s newspaper, a radio station, a TV show and a few magazines. This was all at once in another life. And then there was the blog. I also worked in a couple of music stores and the lure of a good discount felt like it made up for the truly mediocre paycheck. So that’s a lot of enablers right there.

Anyway, as the CDs started to pile up to toppling point, and as streaming services started to arrive, as digital downloads became the way that review copies were received, and as I got hooked on vinyl all over again, the CD collection started to shrink. The LPs in the corner blossomed and then a new set of piles started to grow.

Most recently, I’ve had a giant prune of my record collection. I’ve dumped, traded and sold about three quarters of it. I had several thousand LPs and now I have a few hundred (most of the remaining ones…you guessed it, movie soundtracks). I’ve ditched all of my cassette tapes apart from one. And I’m giving away my vintage Denon tape player (it still goes, perfectly in fact).

But in all of this, I never expected that I would be buying and acquiring CDs.

It happened by accident. The way I presume a lot of collections start.

There are many soundtracks that were never available on vinyl. I am on the hunt for a particular holy grail: Paul Kelly’s score for Lantana. I owned it once upon a time, loaned it out and never got it back. It’s only on CD – you can’t even listen to much more than a clip or two from it on YouTube. I’ve never seen it on any other streaming service. But it’s such a special album.

The thought of one day finding that has me combing through bins and looking at racks as I pull over to stop in at any Salvation Army or St. Vinnies store. Opshops and school galas aren’t safe from me either. In Melbourne recently, I found the soundtracks to Reality Bites and The Wedding Singer on CD. That’s the 90s and the 80s covered right there. We were in a car that didn’t have any phone-connection. Those CDs were the perfect things to have for that moment.

It's silly to regret simple things. It was fine to get rid of all of my CDs all those years ago. I don’t really miss them. And for years I never even had a CD player in the house anyway. I had one in the car – and used it for reviewing the handful of albums that still arrived in the letterbox.

Now the car doesn’t have a CD player, but the house does once again. Thank you TradeMe ($9!)  

And so, to the poem’s sentiment.

Every morning somewhere between 5-7am I get up and listen to two or three CDs before I head off for the day.

I might be scratching into place a newsletter not entirely unlike the one you’re reading now. Or I might be writing a poem not entirely unlike the one up at the top of this newsletter. It’s also possible I’m reading a book or researching something I want to write about another time.

This is my meditation.

Or at least my version of it.

Maybe it’s my medication.

It's some of my favourite time in any day.

And I’m finding some of my (new and old) favourite music.

I have a series over at Off The Tracks called What a Good Score! There are 19 posts so far. Who knows how many I’ll write…hundreds maybe…or it’s also possible that I’ll slow down and give it up and start something new? But it’s fun for now. And if you click on that link, you’ll be able to access the 19 that exist so far.

You’ll be able to read about Thomas Newman and his score for The Shawshank Redemption, or the only Eric Clapton album I’ll allow in the house these days. I’m mostly writing about scores – that being the instrumental selections that provide the theme and supporting feel for a film. But sometimes I’ll include a classic old run of songs – a soundtrack album like Saturday Night Fever or Prince’s album Parade – which doubles as the soundtrack for his movie Under The Cherry Moon.

I talk about ‘healing’ in that poem. I guess I’m licking my wounds somewhat from being a chewed-up and spat-out music writer and former broadcaster. I’m rebuilding myself and my listening habits and I know I’ve written about this a bit before. And you know I’m going to write about the movie soundtracks again. (And again).

But also, healing as a concept here is just about the positivity.

It's so lovely to just sit and hear music that’s gorgeous. Music that was meant for one purpose (the film in question) and now serves another one entirely (my happiness, an ambience for the room, part of the heart of the house). I’ll never get over that magic-trick that a brilliant movie score can offer.

The new thing for me is to get out of bed early and play a CD.

That’s all it takes. That’s skin in the game. That’s my soul music. That’s me in the corner, choosing my way to start the day. Losing my compulsion to document every single new music release that runs past my ears. Reframing the way I process music and the type of music that fills my heart and soul the most. There are other reasons for me to be doing this listening and this collecting. And I’ll work out what those are some other time, perhaps. And report back no doubt. There’s no rush. (And nothing by the band Rush – thank god). There’s time. And that’s all I need.

You and me and $5. And a TradeMe account. Maybe some good coffee too. Reality doesn’t bite quite so hard when you start the day with a CD or two.

I’ve made a playlist below, just a wee sampler of some of my favourite pieces from some of my current favourite soundtracks.

And because it’s Friday, there is another playlist too. It is Vol. 76 of the ongoing feature here, A Little Something For The Weekend…Sounds Good! It starts and ends with a little piece of score but the mood of it is mostly disco. Scorching good disco-funk-soul. Enjoy!

Also, I hope your weekend not only sounds good, I hope it’s wonderful all around.