Listening to some of my all time favourite songs. Genre is rock. Songs are quite long. The ones dealing with this post are just four in number. Echoes (Pink Floyd), Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin), Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd) and Russia on Ice (Porcupine Tree). The setting is in an APSRTC Bus, sitting on the stairs of the rear door, in the middle of night (8:30 PM), in the middle of a Highway, on the way to college. The feeling is inexplicable, the desire, eternal.
At this juncture of life, these songs somehow seem to relate to my life and aspirations. I notice a common design in all these songs. They start slow and heavy, not outrightly musical from the beginning but promising enough to lure the listener into eagerly continue listening. This beginning which shows a potentially legendary song is followed by either a gradual addition of music (like in stairway to heaven) or by a rhythmic lull (as in echoes) which carries on to a point where enjoyment turns into a little impatience and one can sense something epic happening around the corner. Seems like there is constant music that you are laboring through with patience to develop a base for something magical.
There comes a nadir almost ending the musical lull described above, where one feels that enough has been stocked and its time to pull up your socks and dive in the ocean to play David and Goliath with the tides. Thus starts something that will give you an adrenaline rush. The epic solo of Jimmy Page; the magic created by Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason; and the overpowering tune of Steve Wilson; symbolize grandeur, indulgence, grace, style and rhythm. The ease with which these stretches of music create a huge momentum of their own (ex - russia on ice) one feels like mountains are moving. The last 5 minutes of echoes are like these sixes hit off flicks and chips by a batsman who can see the ball like a football, timing the connect of leather to the sweet spot of his willow - perfection, ease and flare galore! The solo in stairway to heaven feels like sprinting over to the top of a mountain as it reaches its crescendo, maybe, symbolizing the run up the stairway to heaven; and finally, comfortably numb has a feeling of greatness (like a boss!) and of looking back at the achievements and the journey tread thus far in life and feeling happy about the things one has done till eyes water and hair raises, as the cool shameerpet breeze runs through my hair and I drop down at my destination.
To be honest, life seems to be in the musical lull right now, one may want to sense drama around the corner. Maybe the nadir is approaching and I need to pull up my socks to reach the crescendo. Don't know if I can really fit into the feeling that I get from these songs, but, I believe that life is best described by Robert Plant's introduction to Stairway to Heaven in the 1977 concert in Seattle (and in many more live performances) - "This is a song of hope."
