Mood
Music is a mood.
My father owned an awesome collection of LPs. My favourites were the reggae albums by Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Jimmy Cliff. My favourite aunt, dad’s youngest sister, also owned an awesome collection of LPs. Between her collection and dad’s, my impressionable, moody, youth was bookended by songs I loved. But it is mum’s collection that truly defined what musical appreciation was, or what I could aspire to.
Mum’s collection covered all the bases: reggae, benga, rhumba, gospel, classical (Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17 continues to astonish me to this day) and, believe it or not, gangsta rap. Music, sisters and brothers, is a mood.
It’s been a minute since my last episode, but I think I am going through a longer-than-usual stretch of depression; I can’t seem to resit the soothing urge to sleep and I find the taste of the things that I love less salubrious. Not even my inveterate tweeting has lifted the fog clouding my mind and sapping my spirit. I’m quite good at masking it: I know how to play at humour, social interest, and general bonhomie. But it is all a façade.
Music is a mood.
So, of course, I’ve turned to music. The songs that I have on my various devices. The songs that I find online. The songs I encounter in jav’s. The songs I remember from way back when. New songs. Old songs. All of them forming a music that I pray will stave mental disaster one more day.
Music is a mood.
I found an old video of Miriam Makeba singing Pata Pata and I smiled. I found three different version’s of Black Puma’s Colours, and I smiled. I listened, once more, to the remarkable The Miseducation of Eunice Waymon, and I smiled. I’ve trod over old ground (Bob Marley’s Could You Be loved, and Peter Tosh’s Feel No Way especially), and I smiled. But not for long.
Music is a mood.
I think we are turning the corner. The signs are there. I did not look at the liquor section of my supermarket with longing when I did the weekly shopping. I’m not thinking of driving my shitbox off of the Rift Valley View Point. It’s been a minute since I thought of telling one of my bosses to go pound sand. Instead, today, I woke up at 4:30 am without praying for five minutes more of sleep. And I ate a rather lovely muthokoi for breakfast (thank’s mum). With milk tea. And honey.
Music is a mood.
I listened to a reckless mix I did some time in the middle of the pandemic in 2020 – Bob Marley, Tupac, Milia Bel, Jamnazi, Elvis Presley, Crystal Gayle, Christafari, Koffee, Clement Malola, Nazizi – and all seemed so hopeful. I’m not out of it yet. I still don’t want to talk to any of you. But I am no longer stomping around as if I wish a nigga would.
Music, I tell you, is a mood.