The best writers make you think. They can shape your views, they can change your mind, they can take you places you never dreamed existed. One of my favourite writers is David Hepworth, who specialist subject is music. He has written a series of excellent books including ‘1971 – Never A Dull Moment (Rock’s Golden Year)’ and, more recently Hope I Get Old Before I Die. I recommend both books wholeheartedly, although that is not the point of this blog. It is something that Hepworth often says about music and how you should not search for it. “(I’ve) always been a believer in the idea that music finds you when you’re ready”, Â he said. That certainly made me think.
I can bore for England on the subject of music and how I am always striving to find new music, but maybe it’s not as simple as that? The writer and broadcaster Stuart Maconie argues that there is no such thing as new music. “New music is only music you haven’t heard before“, he says and I think that’s spot on. I am constantly coming across music I haven’t heard before, only to find out that some of it is not just old, it’s ancient. But it’s new to me and I get the same frisson of excitement hearing something with which I am unfamiliar whether it came out in the relative dark ages of music or next month.
I accept Hepworth’s argument that great music will find you, but I would qualify it just a bit. I like to think that I put myself in a place where music will find me. That is by way of listening to a variety of radio shows, by reading what’s left of the music press, by visiting websites and by experimenting as a result of the algorithms that are part of social media and YouTube.
The legendary British prog rock band Gentle Giant almost completely passed me by in the 1970s but in the last decade or so, I have discovered their work and subsequently bought it all. That was through Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone on BBC 6 Music, a weekly show where more unusual, avant garde music is featured. Today, while listening to Lauren Laverne’s show, I came across a brilliant track by James Ellis Ford called Overtones from his forthcoming album Lost In Another World which, to quote his website, was written in two weeks “while James was on a hospital ward between punishing rounds of chemotherapy, following a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML)“. Well, that story certainly got my attention. And here, Hepworth was right. That brilliant song found me, not least because I allowed myself to be in position for it to find me. If I spent all day listening to an oldies station, say the immensely popular Greatest Hits Radio, which is for music fans who have found Radio 2 simply too cutting edge, I would not put myself in a place for music to find me, unless I wanted only records I already knew to find me. (Author’s note: it is perfectly fine to listen only to old music. There is no law that says you shouldn’t.)
Overtones is a brilliant song, as is Too Late by Stefan Malhendra, Sleepwalking by Little Grandad, The Van by Bleachers and Jupiter and Mars by Avalon Emerson. At no point did I set out to actively find them. I was in the right place at the right time, my music collection just got bulkier, my wallet emptier and my happiness ratings were off the scale. I never get tired of hearing something great that I’ve previously missed.
So, I am not actively seeking to find ‘new’ music. It’s finding me. And the more music I find, the better my life is.
Hepworth’s latest book, Hope I Get Old Before I Die, is all about the modern phenomenon where rock stars never retire. Partly, it’s because we now have a generation of septuagenarians and older who grew up listening to rock music and still want to hear it, mainly the hits. That’s why there are so many oldies stations on the radio and it’s why so many heritage acts who in previous times would have faded away are in many cases bigger than ever.
There’s music for everyone. Even doddery old codgers like me. Now, where’s my tea and biscuits?
