So, I’m more than a little obsessed with Ellie Goulding at the moment. ‘Lights’ is such a great pop album, and considering I grew up listening to Madonna and Prince, my standards are possibly higher than most…
Anyway, the stand-out track (and single, inevitably) is ‘Starry-Eyed’, a short burst of beautiful, glitchy electronica and soaring, auto-tuned vocals (I’d like to point out the use of AT is rather tasteful on this track, compared to the hyper-processed sound of Kanye “Second Coming” West). Have a listen if you haven’t heard it already. Or if you have.
Music has alway had a profound effect on me. In fact, during a conversation with The Husband the other day, it dawned on me that a considerable chunk of my memories all relate in some way to a song. The most vivid memory I have of my mother, for example, is watching her clean the house while dancing to Blondie’s ‘Hanging on the Telephone’. I must have been about 6, jiggy along with this impossibly jolly hippy, hair down to her bottom, bright orange duster punching out to the music.
When I think about my teenage years, I think about George Michael, and being awkward and dressed in uncomfortable netting and lace at a school disco. Stood straight and terrified up against the speaker, I remember feeling the pulse of ‘Father Figure’ through the broken mesh behind me, and the bass teasing my body with these alien, adult feelings of sexuality. Puberty was siguarly the most exciting and the most terrifying time of my life.
There is something about Ellie’s track, ‘Starry Eyed’, that drags me back to being this tense, vunerable 16 years old, seeing love as this complete and utter Disneyland fantasy. All moon-eyes and just kissing for hours and being so affected by another human being’s presence that you would shake.
A far cry from the reality of marriage, perhaps, but I am glad, at times like these, to recall how my lover James once turned me into a quivering teenager, and how those moments, however rare, are still there to be reached for and grasped with both hands.
Love xxx