Foster - Musical Notes: A Personal Musical Dictionary

Musical Notes

A Personal Musical Dictionary

John Foster

Copyright 2020 John Foster

All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 9781234567890
ISBN-10: 1477123456
Original cover artwork by: Chris Gow
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America

MUSICAL NOTES
A PERSONAL MUSICAL DICTIONARY
John Foster lives in Dumbarton, Scotland with his wife and two children. His first book, Centrifuge, was self-published through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing in 2013. He currently works full time in local Government.

If, as the saying goes, madness is demonstrated by repeatedly committing the same act in the hopes of achieving a different outcome, then Id just like to thank all my family and friends who have continued to tolerate my petty obsessions despite receiving any evidence to suggest that my habits would change. This is particularly true for those who have known me longer than most. You know who you are, but special mention must be made to my parents, my brothers, my in-laws, my wife and kids, and my former colleagues from a certain telesales office. Please let it be known that you all tried your best with me. By enabling my flights of fancy, you have placated a blathering fool, and your acts of madness have kept me sane. Without your consistent love, support, and guidance I would never have made it this far. I apologise profusely for my consistently vapid ramblings and await the inevitable intervention in nave, oblivious good humour.

For:
Lisa, John, and Saul.
And the music.

Contents

Prologue

For most of my life, in fact the vast majority of it, I found myself haunted by a persistent and recurring phantom which stalked my waking moments without respite. So insidiously and deeply had it burrowed into my psyche that I was left facing the conclusion that it must be an emanation from an alternate dimension or an inner projection of an evidently damaged mind. It got to the point where I began to question the nature of my own reality. Over time this invisible presence would inevitably fade and for variable periods, often for a few days but sometimes for weeks or even months, I would forget about its very existence, only for it to return again with renewed vigour and increased demands. Occasionally, its return to my thoughts would entail some further detail, a slightly heightened definition of its shadowy shape, like the sudden recollection of fragments from a forgotten dream. But its basic form remained resolutely the same, unchanging, and unyielding and mocking me with its insoluble riddle. Without my ever agreeing to it, I was locked into an eternal game I could not win against an opponent I would never know.

The above passage is obviously cryptic for dramatic effect, and its plain that Ive been a bit liberal with the old poetic license. However, in my defence, this description does provide a reasonable reflection of the situation I was faced with because for as long as I could remember I had an unrecognisable song lying buried somewhere in my head. Actually, it was only a part of a song, really only a melody of around four bars or so. As I grew, and the years and then the decades passed, I began to turn this musical scrap over in my mind more closely anytime it chose to return. It was, I was sure, an older electronic tune, from either the late 70s or early 80s. Given its note structure, Id also concluded that the section I was aware of was more likely to be a chorus, rather than a verse or a bridge. Over the years, Id ask different people for their thoughts, humming what I could remember in the hopes that it would trigger an obscure memory in their head. Progress wasnt just slow, it was glacial. No one I spoke with could help. Maybe I just hadnt been sufficiently proficient in my rendition, I thought. But as the years wore on without any headway, I began to consider the possibility that Id simply imagined this music entirely, just as Paul McCartney had famously dreamt Yesterday . I would have given up the whole frustrating exercise long before, but the song wouldnt let me.

With advances in technology and the emergence of the internet, it became easier to carry out a more thorough investigation. I could pore through the back catalogues of probable suspects, working from a central point and spiralling outwards in ever increasing radii. Now and then a group or artist would come to my attention that I hadnt previously considered, and Id scuttle off in that direction, the faint glimmer of a possible solution bringing fleeting and momentary excitement. It would never last, but it helped to sustain the folly.

And then, in 2016, I stumbled across a cache of old electronic music by a variety of acts Id never heard off. Without any expectation, I opened the first file and let its opening track play. Instantly, my heart skipped.

It was the song!

From its very first beat I knew that this was what Id been searching for my whole life. Sitting in stunned silence, I let the music wash over me until it reached the first chorus. And. There. It. Was. The piece of music Id had spinning in my cranium for almost forty years greeted me like an old friend. Glad to finally see you, it seemed to say. Weve been here the whole time. What took you so long? I was almost in tears. Once it had finished, I played it again. And again. And again. What surprised me most wasnt that Id found the song at long last, but that my memory of it had been so accurate, even after all the intervening time.

For anyone wondering, the song in question is Magic Fly by a French band called Space. It was released in 1977 which means that I would have been 2 years old. Now, I know for a fact that neither of my parents had this record, so I can only surmise that Id heard it on the radio while it was in the UK charts, or at least that portion of it which lodged in my brain and which continued to call out to me for four decades. On reflection, its entirely possible that this is my oldest true memory, as verified years after the event.

Now, there are two aspects to this anecdote which I found both interesting and troubling. Firstly, once the initial elation had passed after a few days, I was left with a sort of hollow emptiness inside me. Just as Id never consciously chosen to have this mystery chase me all my life, so Id never specifically asked for it to end. True, Id made continual efforts to reach an explanation, but they had been intermittent and rested, I can now see, on an innate understanding that they would never actually come to fruition. For all my disappointments and irritations, Id made peace with the game, had embraced it as a part of me. No matter how inconsequential it may have been to an outsider, it nonetheless provided me with a semblance of purpose. It was my own personal enigma and I was part of it. It was mine and no one elses. Suddenly the riddle was solved, and the game was over. What was I to do now?

Secondly, as I investigated Magic Fly further, it became evident that it was a worldwide hit, that it had, in fact, been covered by various artists over the years and was a song with some standing in contemporary culture. Given this level of fame and recognition, how had I managed to miss it all these years? Why had no one ever brought it to my attention before? Had my humming really been that atrocious?

Of course, as is always the way in situations like this, I met up with a friend and his stepbrother just a few days after finding Magic Fly . I was still in high spirits and regaled them with my story, about my decades long struggle and its unexpected conclusion. Almost immediately my friends stepbrother said that he knew of it and confirmed that it was indeed a famous song. I think he may actually have used the phrase, Well, I could have told you what it was. I felt my nostrils flare. He then proceeded to tell a tale like mine, about a song he could never place. He described it as being an old 90s dance tune with a sort of duelling banjos theme. Straight away I recognised it as Swamp Thing by the Grid and told him so. He confirmed that this was the song hed been looking for. Well, I suggested nonchalantly, I could have told you what it was.