Middle age angst

I need something new to listen to, and I need it now. But for some reason the latest CDs I have bought are not casting the right spell, and all the old albums I return to out of desperation sound worn and weary to my ears. We all have these little phases. Maybe there’s something in the air. (Call out the instigator, because there’s something in the air.) Maybe love is in the air. (Everywhere I look around. Love is in the air, every sight and every sound.) At least I am not walking in the air.

This is getting serious.

(I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord.)

What if you realised, one day, that there simply wasn’t any more music that the mind can take? What if you reached saturation point? I worry about this. For 35 years now, a small part of my brain has been dedicated to a single thought: what record shall I play next? Like you, I have far, far too many records. I will buy one on the smallest whim, and I will dispose of one with the greatest reluctance. It almost needs to be toxic before it goes to the charity shop, to sit with all those Lightning Seeds and Travis and Leona Lewis CDs people can no longer bear to have in their houses.

But however much music we have, it never seems to be enough. We go on buying records and CDs, and downloading tracks legally or illegally, and listening to streaming services on the internet and strange radio stations from god knows where, all in the hope of hearing the next killer song that will change our lives. I am one of these people, and I know many others.