Move To The Rhythm Of My Heartbeat

Music brings us together, everyone knows this from the Pikey on the corner with a bottle of white lightning, to the Grandad tapping his foot in a retirement home.
As well as listening to music as a release from the day to day monotony of life, writing and playing music is stronger still. I haven’t written a song for over a year and a half, and it seems like it has been forever.
I know I will never get the fury I once had back, I was an angry, pissed off 16 year old when we recorded an EP and since then I have calmed down to an extent. I penned songs full of anger and bitterness to the things and people around me, which, in hindsight I did go a bit over the top with sometimes. But now I no longer feel the world is a threat to me, and no longer feel the need to be overly aggressive on a topic I know very little about. However, throwing myself around the stage was the best feeling in the world, a high no one could take away from you, once you got started there was no stopping.
One night descended into total chaos as 20 people started to beat the shit out of each other in the tiny pub. After two songs a nose had been broken, a kid being thrown through a microphone stand and a panel in the door to the beer garden getting totally destroyed (courtesy of my foot). Some would call this mindless violence and appalling behavior but it was the music taking hold. It brings us together in ways we can’t imagine, some people tap their foot, others completely let go and let the sound flow through their veins like a drug.

The Busker

Yesterday I was in London; I had just finished work and was enjoying the sunshine, walking along the Southbank with my iPod pumping through my ears. I crossed Jubilee Bridge and walked past the usual buskers, hearing snippets that lasted a few seconds of each, as I neared them. One man however, caught my attention. He was dressed as a court jester and was pretty much a one man band. The instruments were blatantly bought from toy shops and he had no idea how to play them. He looked like he should have been in the IT department of HSBC. He strummed away and I caught the lines ’50 cent’s songs are a lot shitter than mine’ and took a longer look. He had a tambourine with the words ‘joy is free’ written on it. This made me laugh and bought a smile to my face. No one else was passing by and he only had a few pennies in his pot. It made me realize people in London need to take themselves less seriously, and stop and enjoy his ‘music’. If only more buskers were like this…