You forever
Picture: Gareth Iwan Jones/The Observer
When I get down to the heart of it, The Sound of Being Human is about how music strengthens relationships between people. Its biggest inspiration was not my father, to be honest, but someone who came into my life six minutes after ten on a Spring morning in 2014, thirteen days late, a day before my thirty-sixth birthday.
I used to hug him tight when he was tiny and I was a mess, dancing him around the kitchen to the songs of my childhood, desperately trying to hold on. I loved watching him grow into a toddler, jiggling to Boney M in baby classes and to New Order on the radio. I played him tracks by bands I loved - I remember a long Pet Shop Boys period when he was two or three, him shouting for Pa-nee-na-wo - and me being desperate for all of them to grab his heart, for him to feel the way I felt about them. I know this is silly and unfair, but we all do it, don’t we?
This piece is about how I’ve watched my E’s interest in music really blossom (because of and in spite of me) in the last few years. This is something my book didn’t document, as when it went off to White Rabbit in late 2021 he wasn’t there quite yet. It’s about the differences between a 1980s low-tech childhood and a 2020s hi-tech one. It’s about reliving your own early years, and wanting to live your children’s. It’s about two people singing along to Bonkers and Livin’ On A Prayer and Green Green Grass and The Night in the car and why it feels so full an experience. It’s about how songs capture us in their intervals and their metre and never really let us go.