First thing's first, imagine me opera singing this: "Happy New Year 2013 to all you wonderful people" Done that? Okay now cue the applause and the desperate hunt for a kleenex because my voice is just that beautiful. Oh yeah, you know it's true.
Now all that aside, it's a new year, wahey, so whack out the 7-up and Bombay mix and all that and let's get down to the matter at hand, the music.
The first Tee Pot post of the new year is not going to be about new artists or songs or albums or anything in that vein, nuh-uh, no today is going to be a little different. Today is all about the idea of home. Not my house or your house or your best mate's house, no this is a metaphorical home and it is the one you are transported to when you hear that one particular artist or that one particular song.
The music that possesses a peculiar and magical ability to make you feel like you have found where you belong. That music.
Now I began thinking of music feeling like home after reading an article on rookiemag.com.
The writer spoke about Bob Dylan in particular and how for her, discovering him felt like finding home and it diverted me on to this particular trail of thought.
Why do certain artists feel like home to us? How can they make us feel this way? Who feels like home to me? What is home in this sense anyway?
Well to me, home is essentially the one place you truly belong.
And it isn't just a brick and mortar structure in the town you grew up, no home can be anywhere.
It can be your friends, your family, your boyfriend/ girlfriend, your favourite band, book, artist, football team, shop, hobby, city.
And I think you know it's home because you can almost feel it in your heart, your soul, your mind, that sense of 'this is right, this is where I belong'.
In this post, I wanted to follow the line of music feeling like home and so if it's alright with you, I wanted to talk about my experience with music feeling like home and how I knew I'd found it when I heard a certain song by a certain artist.
Hopefully you too will then start thinking about the artists that represent home to you and if you want to, you can tell me all about it because I want to know I'm not the only one, that I'm not crazy for thinking like this.
So here goes. For me, that artist, the makers of that special kind of music, are the Arctic Monkeys.
I briefly mentioned my adoration for them way back in April in one of my first postings but unfortunately due to 2012 being an unproductive year for the Monkeys, you didn't get to see quite how much I adore them.
And in that case, you were actually, probably, quite possibly very, very lucky.
But alas my friend, your luck has run out.
My love for the Arctic Monkeys began in Autumn 2011 and I guess you could say it was like love at first sight, except it was a song I heard and fell in love with.
The more I think about it, the more I think it's kind of crazy how you can stumble across and fall in love with one song, one boring, average day, and within a matter of weeks, that song leads you to a whole body of equally amazing work that just sounds like perfection to you.
It's like you've found exactly what you didn't know you were looking for.
It's like this music fits you like a perfectly crafted glove, it fits like a missing puzzle piece, it's like someone knew exactly what you wanted and needed to hear and made that music specifically for you. No-one else.
And as soon as you hear that one song, you just know in your heart that this is the music you've spent your whole life waiting to hear.
The first song I heard by the Monkeys was 'Suck It & See' off their fourth album of the same name, and seeing as this was their fourth album, not their first, I was pretty far behind in making this discovery.
They'd already cracked the music industry, in fact they were reveling in it, reigning kings, and everyone seemed to have jumped on the bandwagon five years previously.
Everyone except me.
Yet there I was in 2011, feeling like I'd just stumbled across something close to utter perfection and wondering how on Earth I hadn't taken notice of this utter perfection previously!
How did I miss this?!
Now swap the above song with the one that holds the same meaning to you and I'm sure you'll remember that first encounter like it was yesterday. And I'm sure that like me you'll remember what happened next.
For the fifteen year old me, it was jumping on You Tube thinking "I need to hear this again, I need to find this band and listen to every god damn song they've ever made!" and in this modern age, that lead to downloading song after song like I was catching drops of a sacred, holy potion in a vial.
Within two weeks I'd bought tickets for a gig the next month, which was absolutely amazing in case you wanted to know, and by new years I had every CD.
Looking back now, it sounds like one of those relationships you dive into without thinking, you rush into it giddy on love and it's like your running and you just can't stop,despite everyone thinking it won't last, it's just a silly phase, burned out within the year.
I myself can't quite believe how quickly I did things. Normally it takes me at least a year to get round to seeing an act I love live in the flesh and for that full blown love to develop. Yet with the Monkeys I jumped right in there, giddy on that high, and even though I knew I was going too fast, I also knew that this band was 'the one', cheesy as that sounds.
I knew that I had found that artist that sticks with you your whole life, the one you never tire of, the one you listen to when you're down, when you're happy, when you feel like an outcast, the one who's band tee you will most probably be buried in when you die. That artist.
The ones in your eyes never make a bad song, could never do any wrong, the ones you idolize, they are everything to you and you don't quite know why that may be.
I had found that artist, my beloved Monkeys, and I just wanted to run around everywhere proclaiming my love, showing everyone that I'd found that artist.
It was awesome.
And one year later, I am convinced that I have every song by the Arctic Monkeys and related projects, such as The Lost Shadow Puppets, Submarine soundtrack, covers, EP's etc. on my I-Pods ( I have a lot of music...). It makes me sound as bad as those crazy 'Directioners' or 'Beliebers' (dammit) but in all honesty I just never tire of Alex Turner's croon, the crazy, metaphorical lyrics, the stunning guitar. I listen to these songs all the time and they never get old. My love and appreciation never dies, even when I'm also convinced that I have indeed overplayed those songs, so much so that I won't be able to stand them ever again in my whole entire life ever.
It's crazy, utterly, utterly crazy, and yet we call this craziness love.
Now I know that not everyone loves the Arctic Monkeys in the same way I do, just as I think other artists, for example The Wanted, are really, really, really bad, and I accept that. You yourself might be reading this post and be thinking the whole time about how crap the Monkeys are, or how I'm deluded for idolizing them like this, and again, fair play to you.
But when it all comes down to it, we each have an artist that means the world to us, and maybe more.
We each have our own taste, view, opinion, ears, and so what's utter, undeniable perfection and amazing-ness to one person may be utter, undeniable crap to another.
But the important thing is what that music means to you, no-one else, how it makes you feel, and if to you, that music is your everything, don't let anyone take that away from you. Never be ashamed or embarrassed because finding a connection as powerful as that is a truly wonderful thing,
Even if it that connection is with One Direction....
hehe ;)
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