Hames

I am a bit choosy with the music I used to play in my playlist. Bluegrass and country  genre is a daily staple of my waking music life.  I have fallen in love with the soothing voice of Alison Krauss since day one, when I heard “Now That I Found You” and her own rendition of “When You Say Nothing At All”, all chart toppers in the late 90’s.  Like food, country music and bluegrass are organic and ear-friendly  tunes without  the toxicity of blaring and  shouting trend of modern-day rock gurus.

I like contemplative mood of country and bluegrass sound. Its melodic and heartwarming themes of simplicity of rural lifestyle of the typical Americana. I am being transported to the good olden days I used to have in our small town Gerona.  I remember the Sundays’ hustle and bustle at the coliseum in the middle of the sugar cane field, during the heydays of cockfighting.  I was a grade schooler then.

My grandmother used to help in the coliseum canteen, where she would allow me to roam around the tiered seats of wooden planks. Sun bleached as I was and waiting for the creaking sounds of the hurried footsteps of excited expectators eager to occupy their sacred spaces.

I will wait there fielding my gaze to the green sea of dancing sugarcane leaf breezing through the wind. It was such a pure sight. My unadulterated joy, a moment of bliss and happiness. My solitude amidst the maddening crowd. An honest time without thinking the polluting cares of this world.  I break away.

They say music is a therapy to the soul. A beautiful escape away from confusion and disillusionment.  And like Ally McBeal in a famous series on TV of the same title, every song has a journey of moments, significantly intertwined to the times of our lives.  And I must say, our souls never grow old with time like wine, these bodies are rotten away and growing old like those barrel containers but our souls just evolved into something profound and noble within.

Oh, how my mind travelled so far again to the time that was.  A time where the memory of how simple life it was back then, has left me longing to linger for a little while.  While listening to Alison Krauss, songs like “Simple Love”, “The Scarlet Tide”, “Restless”, “I’ll Fly Away”, “Whiskey Lullaby”, “You’ll Be My Ain True Love”, “I Will”, “But You Know I Love You”, “If I Didn’t Know Any Better”,  and many others, had me again facing back to where I was before.  Right there, at the colliseum with one of my treasured childhood dream of laying down to the green sea of pure joy touching its fragile earth.