Musical Monday

Thought I’d get back into blog-mode by stealing an idea from a fellow blog buddy for a weekly themed post. Felt the right thing to do seeing as though I love all kinds of music ranging many decades.

The song I’ve chosen is Always with me, Always with you by Joe Satriani, one of the world’s best guitarists. This song was first released in 1987, as part of Mr. Satriani’s album, Surfing the Alien. Satriani is widely recognized as a highly advanced, technical rock guitarist, and has been described as a virtuoso. That’s not the reason I chose this song though.

The reason I chose the song is because it brings back memories from around 9 years ago when I was 18 years old. It was August 2000 and not long after I my mother died back in March of that year. The family, in an effort to stay close and to give us that escape from the house and hopefully, stop us grieving, went on holiday to Benidorm.

It was on one of our walks down to the beach that we stumbled across a bar called the Daytona which overlooked the beach. Inside, was a guy from Scotland, who flew over to Scotland to play guitar for holiday makers and earning some money in the process. So we sat and listened with some beer in the shade of the sweltering sun. He introduced his next cover, which was the song I mentioned above, and as he started, I sat mesmerised by the song. For the first time since March and the passing of my mother I felt at peace, looking to and fro from his effortless guitar playing and the calm beach with is in and out tide. I’ll always remember that time when I hear this song, and for that this song will always be on my playlist and never skipped. The song itself has become a dedication to my mother, who is, as the title says, Always with Me, Always with you.

It seemed quite adequate that I mention it now, with it being March and with three anniversaries occurring this month, my mother’s birthday, the date she died and mother’s day. It doesn’t get to me as much as it did back then, but I still get quite emotional and my attempts to not let emotions get to me start to falter. Things have been getting to me recently and have nearly broken down on several occasions. I’m not embarrassed to admit it, as I am not an overly masculine man who thinks feelings are for the weak.

Me and my sister plan to visit her grave next Sunday, to plant some flowers and clean it up generally. Regretfully, I don’t visit the grave much, as I am not religious and find talking to stone and earth does nothing for me. I do however find myself needing to remember what she looked like, as there are no photographs around the house whatsoever to remind us, which is sad in itself. I might find some photos and frame them to put in my room.

Another thing that had me thinking of the song and all those years ago was an old friend adding me on the wonderful Facebook. We were good friends during college around that time and I left college shortly after March 00 to do the grieving thing and lost touch with her and haven’t talked since, but for some strange reason, she chooses this month to add me and we’ve had some good nights reminiscing over them college days way back when. Time flies and times change, but the people remain the same.

I'm also in the process of planning on returning to Benidorm or somewhere on holiday with friends. I'm trying to pursuade them to go to Benidorm. Its cheap and maybe I can return to that bar where I heard the song in an attempt to bring back some memories looking out across the beach to the big blue sea. Fingers crossed

That’s it for now, have a good day wherever you are.