Notes on discovering what type of music I like.
I loved folk music before I listened to folk music and before I even really knew what folk music was.
Huge shout out to my parents for owning a collection of CDs and later, tracks on the iPod that span a wide range of genres that we as kids could listen to passively or choose ourselves for the family road trips.
My parents did their best to give me the basic musical and Music understanding that I would use as I grew into my own interests.
And so in having a history of growing up listening to Baby Mozart with hypnotic visuals, Rock and Roll ballads of Bruce Springsteen and Roxette, Melbourne chamber pop band ‘My Friend the Chocolate Cake’, finishing with contemporary Christian funk worship ‘Garage Hymnal’, it has since taken me a long time of trial and error to figure out what I actually like!
I thought I loved neo-funk because my high school friends were listening to that.
I thought maybe I loved jazz because my brother studies Jazz and I assume his interest as my own
I thought I loved Soul because a boyfriend would regularly tune into the Soul program on the radio.
I thought I loved pop because my sister convinced me music is for fun and dance.
I thought I loved Aus surf rock because I grew up at the beach and that music sounds like my home.
The truth is I do love all those different types of music for those reasons and more. But finding what I really love and enjoy because it resonates with me most is a pilgrimage I continue to trek.
Some influences remain.
I, without doubt, love the rhythmic, rhyming, rambling of Bruce Springsteen.
I always have enjoyed the ebb and flow of an old church hymns that builds up and employs my voice, my eyes, my hands, and the rest of my body.
Then there are some new influences that confirm my tendencies.
I love Angie McMahon for the same reasons I love Springsteen.
I love girly-pop Pop music for the same reasons I love Church Hymns!
Recently I went to see A Complete Unknown in the cinema as a person who is nearly completely unknowing of Bob Dylan. (A not insignificant blemish in my parent’s musical tutorlage). I thought nothing profound of the movie except that I loved the music.
This prompted me to note who I already listen to and know from the wider folksphere and who I can add to my playlist.
But this all comes back to what I would really like to write about here which is Bonny Light Horseman.
My current favourite band:)
September of 2024, a Dutch man I befriended in Tbilisi recommended to me their latest album.
From memory, I told him I liked folk music. (I’m not sure if I really knew what I was talking about at the time).
I proceeded to listen to this American Folk band.
Self described as a “blessed mess”, this album does for me what I think folk music is meant to do.
Somehow, it speaks to me on my level. Songs that wrap me up in a familiar hug and rock me to sleep. It speaks of loss and love, of hope and shame, of life and death. In ways I haven’t experienced but I feel all the same.
This album was written in a small Irish pub and treasures these glimmers of folk music that belongs to the folks. Tracks of laughter and crowd noise, of good company, of hometowns.
The harmonising voices invite my own to join.
The harmonica scratches the itching spot on my back I can’t quite reach.
The banjo tickles my ears.
This music brings a smile to my face and a tear to my eye, whether in hopefulness, hopelessness, or simple joy in sweet sounding music.
Link to my folk and folk-ish playlist
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