Period 1993–2002
Part Two
So, how does what I have discussed in the first part this blog (a brief history of the Blues part 1) relate to my situation with Lauren*?
Well, between 1994 and 1995, I shared a Oxton flat with Hazel* and her best friend at the time, Charlie*. Like Hazel, Charlie is a very talented musician, especially of the ‘Harmonica,’ more commonly known as ‘Harp’ amongst the Blues community. As this would suggest, he is heavily into, and introduced me to, many different recording artists of this genre. Very early on in our friendship, he talked about how listening to the words of these songs helped him to make sense of his situations around lust and love. Excuse the pun, but this hit a chord with me.
I would like to highlight a couple of examples where different Blues lyrics have helped me make sense of matters of the heart. The first is ‘Have You Ever Loved a Woman?’, written by William Myles Nobles^ (29 August 1924–9 October 2005^), and recorded by Eric Clapton, among many others. I discovered this song around 1986 after buying the cassette version of ‘Back Tracking’, a compilation of Clapton’s hits and other well-known tracks, including the aforementioned. A song, from my interpretation, about the author lusting after an unattainable woman. The words very much resonated with me with regard to the past frustrations I’d experienced with Lauren and other one-way lustful fixations in my life.
A guy whose music was introduced to me by my Mum. when I was a kid, was Bob Dylan. He was arguably famous for writing politically aware songs, such as ‘Blowing in the Wind’. However, I found empathy in his early personal ‘Blues-esque’ stuff. Listening to his lyrics, as with other similar musical delights, makes me chuckle about myself and the situations I had landed myself in, over the years, with unattainable women.
One of the ways I channelled my lustful obsessions was through poetry or, maybe a more accurate description would be, rambling prose. Listening to the Blues played an important part of this process. Most of my written creations are very much of a personal nature and I wouldn’t want to be judged as a ‘poet’ by these scrolls. However, I do feel a sense of pride because these are a true reflection of who I was at the time of putting finger to keyboard, so to speak. For better or worse.
I very much feel that meeting like-minded people, who I could emphasise with, as well as discovering The Blues, was the key to making sense of my life and even laughing at myself. To paraphrase a certain well known commercial (for those of you old enough to remember it), “It’s good to laugh”!
In my next blog, I will be telling the tale of how I discovered Pink Floyd after almost getting arrested on Westminster Bridge, in London…
Jarmin Apple
September 2022
*Not the person’s real name
^source Wikipedia
"Drop-in and Chill Out" 