Music for the Masses

I'm in love with two sisters
Only weapons can decide
Whose bed I share tonight
And the cold mister mister
He has got me in his sights
If he shoots me down
He has every right
- Fiction Plane, Two Sisters

I started thinking recently about the evolution of my musical tastes.

I was a child of the 1970s so I grew up with those compilation albums with the barebreasted and starry nippled women on them.

Other Southern Africans will remember, Radio Jacaranda and 702 anyone? Too lazy to go and look for examples, but if you were there you'll remember.

My mom and dad had a predilection for country singers, who begged me not to take my love to town, crooned that my beauty was beyond compare, with flaming locks of auburn hair, and whined about four hungry children and a crop in the field ....

My aunt was single in the late 70s so she was singing to a different tune... her name should have been Mandy. Abba was telling her to be a Dancing Queen and thanking her for the Music. Later, her boyfriend was a rocker, and she was climbing his Stairway to Heaven and Learning to Fly.

In the mid-80s when I was a teenager I was Thriller'd, Radio Ga-ga'd, Woken up before I Go-Go'd and wanted to be Like a Virgin in my fingerless gloves ...

In the early 90s I was practising my charms on unsuspecting boys in clubs wearing a Black Velvet dress.

Please Forgive Me was the soundtrack when I lost my virginity to my friend's boyfriend.

Fast forward a few years for me to identify strongly with Papa Don't Preach, but that's another story.

It was the Summer of '69.

It Must Have Been Love played when it was all over.

A new boyfriend and Friday, I'm in Love!

Later on Nothing Compared to Him.

I Lost My Religion along with everyone else and I really wanted to be a Shiny Happy Person.

A few years passed and then everything was Ironic. I would have done anything for love (but I wouldn't do that). I worshipped for a while at the Wonderwall.

When I met my husband, Hootie was singing I Only Wanna Be with You and when I got divorced from my ex he wailed 'Let her cry'.

Falling in Love was indeed Hard on the Knees.

I tried Not to Look Back in Anger. I wondered what a Champagne Supernova was. I tried to be One of Us.

Republica had me Ready to Go. Later on I really wanted to be an American Woman. A lot of the time I felt like a Zombie. I wanted to believe I was Gorgeous.

Now I'm Hung Up, crushing on Mr Brightside, I don't feel like dancing, I'm Crazy and I'd like to be telling it like it is to Mr President.

I could slip into a Plain White T, I'd like to Waltz in LA and I don't want to Fall to Pieces. I worry that I might Bend and Break, I want to be Grace Kelly, I wonder if this is As Good as it Gets, wish I had a Crystal Ball, and then I decide to Relax and Take it Easy.

*Oh, you want plain simple instructions? Listen to the Plain White Ts, The Killers, Snow Patrol, Keane, Mika, Moke and Beth Hart, Jeff Buckley and  Fiction Plane and you have my current playlist.