By Tara Saldanha
There’s a sound from my childhood that I haven’t quite put a finger on. It’s rhythmic, definitely music of some kind. I think its the sort my dad likes to listen to- so probably Louis Armstrong, or Ella F., maybe Manhattan Transfer or Johnny Cash or a hundred others. I’ve never really been able to identify which one.
But the music seems to follow me around, playing sometimes in my head and sometimes in the air around me. When I’m listening to Loggins and Messina I sometimes think I’ve caught it, but it slips away, mutating its tones from blues to jazz to soul.
It’s woven so tight into my memory that I scarce can appreciate anything else. My dad succeeded in teaching me about ‘good music’. That sound from the past works so well that my response to ‘what music do you listen to?’ is always ‘old music’.
Josephite Literary Review 