Do you believe in Time Travel?
Remember those old cassette tapes… the plastic black TDK ones with yards and yards of brown cellophane that your cat gleefully disembowels onto your bedroom floor…??
Well, guess what? I found one stashed away at the back of my DHL box last night.
Naturally I had to find out if it worked. So it was a veritable “Scouring of the Shire” to dig up a cassette player. After an hour (during which I stabbed my toe, discove
red to my amazement that I owned five corkscrews and lost my mobile phone and found it again), I gratefully slotted the tape into my mother’s old Sony picnic radio - mercifully invested with a cassette compartment.
Then I waited.
For a while nothing happened… just a faint crackle of static as the old film yawned and stretched over slow turning wheels.
And then suddenly it happened - Time Travel… and you know what? I never even left the room!
When I finally returned to the present day, I sat on the floor, chin on my knees, thinking of all the wonderful songs that had kept me company over the years. You know…the sort of songs you don’t necessarily boast about on display shelves of your living room… the ones that make you unconsciously sigh or laugh when you hear them… the naughty secrets you openly deride in the company of people you want to impress, but same ones you cuddle with under the duvet at night. The cream-cracker ‘n’ chicken-soup comforters when things all around you fall apart…
So I came up with a list of songs - not a very long list mind, just ten! The ones that have humoured me the dizzy distractions of childhood and the aimless apathy after - and the ones I will confess here as among my most true and consistent of friends.
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1) Yesterday Once More - Carpenters 
Ahh… we begin with the Carpenters!
They occupy a bashful and secret Cul-de-sac in my CD collection.
My mother told me that the very first song I learnt to sing was “Yesterday Once More”… and that I would emotively belt out the "Sha-la-la-las" and "Shing-a-ling-a-lings" at the age of two.
Somewhere in childhood, I must have undergone a little subconscious surgery… for somewhere inside me there is a little implanted switch that flips on whenever I hear Karen sing.
And oh my word… how she sings! What a wonder of a voice - a contradiction of angelic and human… both strong and vulnerable… disappointment and hope.
Beautiful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5NZI8NmBLA
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2) Alone Again Naturally - Gilbert O’Sullivan 
Not many people know the name Gilbert O’Sullivan, but the moment they hear one of his songs on the radio they blurt out, “Hey! I know this one… it’s GREAT!”.
I probably heard this song for the first time on a radio as a five year old, and I never knew the words… there were far too many of them to memorise, and anyway, being the precocious prat I was, I merrily replaced them with my very own lyrics - undoubtedly about having to eat my greens and swallow my daily dose of cod liver oil!
I heard this song again when I was a 14 year old sitting in my mother’s car being driven to school in the mornings, and it was then that I realised what horribly harrowing lyrics it had! All that dark depression was however a most suitable mop-up for all the angst heaped on my plate at the time. I commissioned this my Theme Song for every time I felt sad or lonely. And being horribly hormonal at the time, there were a good many instances of this!
It was playing in my room when I was told that I had to shift secondary school because my mother was concerned that I would “go the wrong way”… (Ah, too late Mummy dearest!). I remember the empty despair I felt at leaving all my close friends at the time, and setting sail on a new sea of faces in a new school.
I know I listened to this song for days after I was told that Timmy, my first and favourite dog had to be put down.
Much later on, I remember playing this on my bedroom stereo when I broke up with someone I loved.
Gawd! What a gloriously gloomy gem! Love it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCZGqcMZ6Jw
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3) Grease (the Soundtrack)
“I’ve got chills…. they’re multiplyingggggg!!”
Apparently in the riverman~~~-household those chills bordered on obsessive compulsive disorder!
My little sister and I spent much of our early formative years brandishing hair-brushes as mics and prancing around the little stereo system in our nursery doing the Hand Jive and the ra-ma-la-ma-ding-dong…
See, it was a simple case of idolization:
My mother once said that the funniest thing she ever saw was seeing me at the age of 4-5 clutching my heart in the most earnest and heart-felt of agonies of being “Hopelessly devoted to youuuuuu!”. I don’t even think I knew the meaning of half the words, but who could fault all that emotion?!
Ahhh, those endless summer nights of wishful thinking!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3hBlgo84BM
4) Ma Baker - Boney M
This was the very first song I heard from Boney M. Yes, way before I even heard their uber-ridiculous Rivers of Babylon!
When I was 14 years old, my friends and I put up a school sketch/dance for our annual show. Being the motley bunch we were, we decided on a gangster theme… and being the boldest and blackest of the lot(yes - even then!), I was appointed the great Ma Baker herself.
To make a point about my Godfather heritage, I swaggered in a big black trench coat and black glasses and alternated between spinning a plastic toy pistol around in my hand and chewing on some gum. Yes, I aimed to strike fear into every mother and teacher’s heart... and I probably succeeded!
My three friends played my “sons” who got trigger happy with other “gangsters” and then got dramatically mowed down under machine gun fire from the girls from the National Police Cadet Corp (NPCC). It was my first attempt at directing and acting, and between the four of us, we spun a delightfully dark dramatic web over the whole school for a whole 5 minutes!
It was the beginning of a love affair with the stage that continues to this day.
More than 20 years have passed since my dramatic debut, and now whenever I hear that deep voice mutter Ma-ma-ma-ma… over the radio when it goes retro or when the dodgy music video comes up on the Karaoke screens, I can close my eyes and remember the four of us - forever young and fourteen… brimming with bravado… strutting the stage… dancing up a storm and bringing down the roof with applause.
Wow! Some things make you smile for a long time!
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5) How Deep is your Love - The Bee Gees
When I was 13 years old, I dedicated this song over the radio to a person I liked but was too shy to talk to. How typical of a young riverman in love! I had a million things I wanted to say and do, but I held it all in and resorted to romanticise the whole thing. Oh yes… for a good while I was Cyrano de Bergerac writing poetry for my Roxanne and Marc Anthony pining for Cleopatra. I was Lord Byron, Mr Keats and Mr Whitman rolled into one.
Then one day I woke up and beheld the Object of My Desire (OMD) walking hand-in-hand with a Johnny-come-lately. Wah-Ouch! The pain!!!
When I was 16 years old, this song came up on the TV when I watched Saturday Night Fever. I struggled to remember OMD’s name, but I still remembered all that sweaty-palmed sweet scare of first love. Later on, this was my Sunday-night-before-sleep-song while I was living at the hall in university… a contemplative lullaby for the end of a weekend.
It is a remarkable thing. To this day, whenever I hear this song, I don’t remember OMD’s name... but I still remember how I felt when I was 13 years old…
And it is true… the first cut is the deepest…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spBUUoBDS2I
6) Landslide - Stevie Nicks
The first time I heard Fleetwood Mac was when I picked up this CD from the “Everything for S$3.00” box in Far East Plaza over on my way home from school.
In fact I have to thank that S$3.00 box for introducing me to magnificent company… from Leonard Cohen to Kate Bush…
But there is something uniquely unearthly and magical about Stevie Nicks. The song that grabbed me and shook me by the collar at age 16 was “Landslide”. When I hear this song I think of words unsaid and things undone. And in 35 years, there are quite a few of these!
The lyrics are poetry of the highest order:
Took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around,
and I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
'til the landslide brought it down.
Oh, mirror in the sky - what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail thru the changin' ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
I don't know.....
Well, I’ve been afraid of changin'
'cause I've built my life around you.
But time makes you bolder -
Even children get older, and I’m getting older too…
Most people would remember the Smashing Pumpkins version of this song, but for me, the definitive version is Stevie’s - A grinding hurt yearning… exposed and raw.
Take a listen, and you will understand…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8HDJDvfsfQ&mode=related&search
7) I’m going slightly mad - Queen
Come on Reader! You knew Freddy would get on this list! The only question was which song?
The masses will go a-pumping 'n' a-charging out with “We are the Champions”, “We will Rock You” and “Radio Ga-ga”. And oh yes… I know that the people who know me well enough would expect me to predictably plonk “Bohemian Rhapsody” here as a majestic be all and end all.
But no, I will pick this quirky little treasure from the Innuendo album instead.
I first heard this song when I was 18 years old, and I loved the crazy words. It was only two years later, after Freddie had passed on, that I learnt that he had actually been very far down the HIV route when this song was produced. He was not able to perform without heavy make up because of the lesions, and that accounted for the theme of the music video. Throughout the making of the video, Freddie was in pain, but what a consummate performer! You could never see his agony.
This song has a light-hearted significance as well. It was the one song I perpetually kept blasting while I was in the hall in university to piss the living daylights out of my bitchy opera loving neighbour two doors down.
Those poor girls of “D” Block probably learnt all the words to the song by the time they checked out at the end of the year!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNBWf54RvsI
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8) All I want - Toad the Wet Sprocket
In my humble opinion there are not enough people in the world who know and remember Toad the Wet Sprocket.
I heard this while I was in the Army, and I fell in love with this simple song. I listen to this today and remember how our platoon Sergeant played this on his radio while we polished our grimy guns to perfection before we could pack up and check out of the camp on the weekend. We all inserted our own heart-felt words in place of the lyrics, and some of it probably went like this:
“All I want is to go back home
Is to fall asleep…
Is to watch TV…”
I listen to this song today, and I remember my MINDEF days when my life began after 5.30 pm every weekday. I remember sitting in a friend’s house in Bukit Batok and working out my very first song to his guitar. I remember Marlboro Menthol Lights and the yellow smoking box outside the Gombak canteen. I remember Ice Cold Beer and Coronas at Emerald Hill and the wind in my hair at 1 am on a Saturday morning as we drove that mini at 130 km an hour down Bukit Timah…
And I sometimes wonder:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yP0dQEUBaM
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9) Nightswimming - REM
Nightswimming is special to me.
I played this on my discman when I was on my way home on the 167 bus after work. It was a terrible time I remember. My mind was a muddle of decisions I didn't know how to make.
Do I do my law degree?
Do I go abroad for that?
Am I going to regret all this?
I peppered my day with deadlines and chores to keep busy with, so I would not have the time to (God forbid!) think… but when I was finished with all the mundane, I was left with REM and a thirty minute bus ride home.
The words are simple, but what power!
Nightswimming deserves a quiet night
The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago,
Turned around backwards so the windshield shows
Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse
Still, it's so much clearer
I forgot my shirt at the water's edge
The moon is low tonight
Nightswimming deserves a quiet night
I'm not sure all these people understand
It's not like years ago,
The fear of getting caught,
Of recklessness and water
They cannot see me naked
These things, they go away,
Replaced by everyday…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z8sr4oCS94
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…and finally, do I need to introduce this timeless friend?
10) Riverman - Nick Drake
Betty came by on her way Said she had a word to say About things today And fallen leaves Said she hadn’t heard the news Hadn’t had the time to choose A way to lose But she believes Gonna see the river man Gonna tell him all I can About the plan For lilac time If he tells me all he knows About the way his river flows And all night shows In summertime Betty said she prayed today For the sky to blow away Or maybe stay She wasn’t sure For when she thought of summer rain Calling for her mind again She lost the pain And stayed for more Gonna to see the river man Gonna to tell him all I can About the ban On feeling free If he tells me all he knows About the way his river flows I don’t suppose It’s meant for me
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