The first songs...

It must have been late sixties, 68 or 69. I was allowed to use a record player,(pick-up) an old mono thing and the speaker was the cover of it.  I could play singles on that. So I did. And the first singles I played were: Donovan - Hurdy Gurdy Man, The Small Faces - Itchycoo Park  and Billy Joe Royal - Hush. And I was explained that these songs could also be heard on the radio. (How did they manage to get all those people in there? I wondered at the time.) So there I sat, in front of the radio, for hours and hours and hours. I was introduced to the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Beatles, Stones, Diana Ross and the Surpremes and a never-ending list of others and since that first radio experience I have never have been able to let go of music. I simply do not go through an entire day without having sung a song, whistled a tune or just hummed something while thinking; I have to find out what I'm humming... I've never learned how to play an instrument, I've never learned how to sing. In the beginning, I didn't even know how to listen to music. A few months  after that first impressive session of listening to a radio program, I was asked if I could name all the instruments in the band... I couldn't, I did not know what instruments were nor what they had to do with music. I did know one thing however: all the music that I could listen to, was made for me. I also knew that I did not have to like everything I heard, as a 20 years later ex-girlfriend pointed out,  it's not because you don't like this song, that it's a bad song, it can't be, it sold millions of copies, so music is also something to respect.  But first and most of all, music is there to enjoy.