A hidden pearl

There are some great things about getting older – one of them is the freedom to listen to what I want. When I was younger I was sometimes a bit scared of being ridiculed for liking certain kind of music. Now I’m listening to everything. One day it’s Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra or Maria João, the next day it’s Arvo Pärt, Mozart or Shostakovich, Amy Grant, U2, George Michael, The Beatles, Rufus Wainwright, Eva Cassidy, Andrae Crouch or Underworld. Being able to listen to it all on my MP3-player or computer has really revolutionized the way I listen to music. Today I ripped one of my old CD’s that would have embarrassed me fifteen years ago: “Open Road” with Gary Barlow, yes it’s the lead singer of Take That. He was more or less forgotten as soon as the band was history. The album “Open Road” was his debut as a solo-artist. A lot of the album is very ordinary, and some of the songs are really bad, but suddenly there are a couple of songs that are really extraordinary. Especially the title song “Open Road” – it’s a hidden pearl that I’ve listened to every now and then the last years. Sometimes I get a yearning for that song – do you know the feeling? The feeling that certain songs are there to get you through life, to make you go on. Mr. Barlow has given me one of those songs. In the middle of a lot of superficial pop music that soon will be forgotten, I find this little pearl of a song. I can’t imagine what lies behind these lyrics, but here are a few lines of a song that goes beyond a superficial surface:

My life is extraordinary bare,
I fought the fear and chased the pain,
My life doesn’t need to be explained.
I chose to walk this life as one.
Sometimes as I live upon my island,
cut off from emotions and its pain,
that’s when I am tempted by the waters,
the waters that can take me far away,
so I’ll just keep on walking down this open road,
hoping someone somewhere needs me,
so I’ll just keep on walking down this open road.
Talking to the man who knows me,
yes he knows me,
the man is me….