by Shaonli Nath
When you are walking down the Brigade road and you come across the little music store near 10 feet high, make sure that you enter it. Give your love for music some precious time out of your busy day. Look around at the posters and the t-shirts. If a guy who stands there admiring a Beatles key-chain and humming Love me do’s harmonica intro is engrossed so much that he doesn’t notice the girl staring at him, then you walk up to him to find out more. If he can hum so well, he would certainly want to hold your hand and love you eight days a week as well.
 |
| Photo Credit - Subhankar Pal |
Don’t wait for him to come and talk to you. He will not. His music keeps him happy, his quest to learn more about old bands and find out about the little leftover good music keeps him busy, and he still holds the first cut pretty deep. Check out his fingertips, and if they look stiff and damaged, ask where you can buy a capo since you broke your last one. He will not ignore a girl who knows what a capo is. Or if not, find any other way to talk.
As he checks out the John Bonham poster, ask him about his favorite song of Led Zeppelin. If the answer is not Stairway to Heaven, talk to him about Yardbirds. Ask if he watched Across the Universe. And I’m not there. Discuss Nico. The chauvinist for sure will call her a trash promoted unnecessarily by Lou Reed. The one whom you are looking for will sigh over those silky androgynous vocals. Ask him if he likes Pussy Cat Dolls. If he admits liking their videos but hating the music, you know the man in front of you is, for the least, honest. Don’t expect him to ask you out. His music keeps him happy, and he is glad for having found a friend who thinks that good music is dead, except a few Bluegrass bands. Practice Layla and then sing it to him. He might find it a bit comical to be addressed as Layla but he might as well just play Wonderful Tonight back for you and ease your worried mind.
Find the guy who starts his day by karaoking to The Kinks while shaving. You don’t have to exactly be Lola, but if you just walk around the house dressed like one and drink Champagne like Coca Cola, every morning will be a good morning.
And later in the evening both of you can spend hours interpreting the metaphorical Doors or just do a critical analysis of American Pie. Both of you might not have a clear consensus over the use of the word “Jester”, but a ten minute long song can surely be used as good background music.
Date a guy whom you can take to Crossword and buy a collector’s edition of Bob Dylan. Choosing birthday gifts for such a lover becomes a lot easier when all you have to do is get something which he loves. And he loves music the most. Though he already has every song of Dylan downloaded on his computer, yet having a collector’s CD will make him giggle like a little child. You might realize that you are his Joan Baez only for a while around, but years later when you sing Diamonds and Rust, you will only have sweet things to remember and cherish about this original vagabond.
Flick his T-shirts. He has the largest collection of T-shirts in the world and it won’t harm if you steal a Marley or two. He probably might not want to part with the recent ones, especially the ones which are not made in Thailand, so you can easily flick the old oversized Linkin Park from his schooldays. Or the Nirvana one in which you first saw him. And then surprise him with an Abbey Road bed sheet, custom made, so that he just doesn’t wear the Beatles, he sleeps in them too.
Go to Hard Rock Café, settle down at the bar itself and order a pitcher. Sing the good songs together, boo the DJ for the hip hop that he plays, and irritate him till he plays your favorite Ozzy. Order the giant 10 oz burger and skim it up whole from the plate. This man will not want you to conform to the women he sees around in the club in fitted dresses. He knows that not many of them will understand much when the guitarist of the live band gets one note wrong. He notices your eyes unconsciously flinching when that one note goes wrong, and he finds that the prettiest flinch in the world. He adores his burger loving, beer guzzling imperfect girl wearing stonewashed jeans, oversized t-shirt and fake purple Puma slippers. He will stand behind you and both of you can do the YMCA together. And then have another couple of pitchers.
If he tussles around in the bed in night, for his future worries him, don’t try talking him out. A man who knows his music surely knows his priorities and ambitions well too, and no woman can help him with that. Put your expensive android to some use, go to spotify, and play Bridge over troubled waters. He will probably not talk to you, but when he sees your eyes, he knows it’s you singing through the voice of Paul Simon. Kiss his brows and let the sound of silence take over.
When both of you sit and star gaze in the winters, whisper the first few lines of Yellow into his ears. At first, he will smirk at the cheesiness of it all but then he will join you in singing by the time the word yellow comes.
And when he is away, and it gets tough for both of you, call him up drunk, and sing Leaving on a Jetplane to him. Dutch courage might knock off your vocals a bit, but emotions will just carry over fine with all the malt working. While he might be tired after a hard day and not exactly think that you are Annie, later in the night when he goes to bed, you will fill up his senses like a night in the forest.
Date a boy who is a freebird, for he will let you be one too. The lyrics of the songs he has grown up with has given him much insight into how life is and he knows how not to take things hard, and he knows it when things are not right. It will be easier to part and when the biting moment arrives you can sing Angie to him and he will know it’s time to let go. Second cuts are not that deep anyway.
Date a guy who loves music.
Or better, date someone who makes it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recently after reading a blog-article about a boy wanting to date a girl who reads, I brainstormed over the one thing which will make it for me. And nothing crossed my mind except music. A friend once told me that the reason why I sing and hum all the time despite having such a pathetic voice is because music is one of the very few things I am truly passionate about. Enjoy reading and basking in the warmth of love that you already have, had, or deserve.
