Musical Memories

A few months ago my mother passed away.


My parents had a surprisingly large influence on my musical tastes – they weren’t like most of my friends parents. My childhood home had a fantastic record stash including Simon & Garfunkel, Blondie, Roxy Music, ABBA, and many other bands that I still love. They took me to my first live concert, Bryan Ferry’s Bete Noire tour in 1988. I hated Ferry at that time, I was into hard rock. I went because they had an extra pair of tickets and my cousin and I had nothing better to do that night. Ten minutes before the show started, I was still mumbling “Bryan sucks – kill the synths!” Thirty seconds after the first song started, I was a convert. I danced through the entire concert, in awe of what I was seeing and hearing. As we left Exhibition Stadium, I elbowed my way to the front of the merch-booth line, buying a T-shirt. I still have it.

So obviously my parents encouraged me musically. When I was 14 and learning to play the guitar, my mother had a piano. She wasn’t especially good, but loved plinking away at it. We used to play David Bowie’s “Space Oddity together.” Only that song, nothing else seemed to work – we just weren’t that good.

As Mother’s Day is coming this weekend, I was thinking about how my surviving family will deal with the weekend. I thought I’d be fine. Then I heard ‘Space Oddity’ on the internet radio and my heard dropped.

I miss you Mum! Happy Mother’s Day!