Soundtracks....

I was checking out some blogs the other day and came across this young blogger, Hanis, who wrote about the song of her life. After reading through, it made me reflect towards the songs in my life. She ask her fellow bloggers to tell her what particular song were important to them. Thats when I realise that for myself, it was'nt just a song... but songs. And with that here are some collection of songs that for their reasons have left an impact in my 29 years of existance:

THE EARLY YEARS
Nursery rhymes. My favorite..Incy wincy spider. Reason being my late mother would like to geletek me with her fingers whislt singing this. It was so much fun..and back then mengeletek budak kecik as they call it was an incessant habit amongst the elders. Like lahh the elders had other better things to do. However, the point that I had this cute small dimple when I smiled did not help my relentless efforts to plead the elders to stop mengeletek either. Ahh aa but then..thats the best part of having a younger sibling..thou shall be mangsa seterusnye. Kesian Suraya...in my defence; Its Tradition!

FIRST MUSIC INFLUENCE
Back in primary I started to actually take interest in music at the age of 11 years. Back then Muzik Muzik was hip and trust me, before Astro created a storm with Akademi Fantasia, even before American/Malaysian Idol was dominating the media viewers..Juara Lagu was the Bomb. Who could not forget the clash of 1990 when Search's Isabella went head-to-head with Wings's Taman Rasyidah Utama. It was a close fight, with each band trying to outdo each other vocally, musically, style and ball-squeezing-butt-clenching leather pants and hair-curlers. It was amusing to see the more uncomfartable the pants looked, the more stable and higher the pitching of their voices. Alas it was Search's Issabella that triumphed and for the next couple of years nothing but.."Dia...Isabella, Lambang cinta yang nyata".

How influential was this song? Let me just say, sampai nenek-nenek dan makcik-makcik from 60 years till 80 years were even humming the song. Not to mention it was even a proud moment for parents at that time to showcase how their new child, at a timid age of probably 2/3 years, would sing the chorus to that song. It was a song so recognisable, so instantaneously acknowledge and had the longest airplay in M'sian history (then!). And for me..it was the first song I was able to play on the 1st string of a guitar.

YEAR OF THE RAPI do not know what possesed me at that point. But I gues thanks to radio shows like American Top 40 (on radio 4 then) it was the age of rap. Two very important things happened in the 90's , rap and Will Smith. The opening to fresh prince of bel air theme was more or less the catalyst to the generation at that time. The tv show was a much watched and popular show shown on TV3. It was considered un-hip to have not watch or missed a fresh prince episode. It was at this age that I had my first crush on a girl. And she liked rap music. Specifically vanilla ice. It was a competition amongst my classmates to see who could sing Ice Ice baby without making a mistake. And I remember that this period was also giving birth to the age of the baggy pants. God...what was I thinking!!!

IN MY OPINION ROCK SAVE ME

In my early teenage years, I started to take up guitar playing seriously. This led to me buying a lot of guitar magazines to grab hold of tablature transcripts to popular songs I wanted to learn. It was hard to find the songs you wanted to play on magazines. It usually depends on whats famous that time, and thats only when it would get published. It was one fatefull evening, I got a guitar mag for my birthday by my late mom. It did not have any songs I wanted, but, she knew I like reading them and bought it regardless. I never took any attention to the album review section but decided to perused and read through to see what was interesting at that time. What cought my eye was the review of the Soundgarden album, SuperUnkown. I miss-intepreted the concept of 'melancholy and beatleisque' to mean the band was a happy-happy melodic ensamble. Bought the album and to my shock, was blasted with the infusing angst and banshee wails of Chris Cornell. Here I was standing in front of my radio speakers being impaled by the wall of guitar distortion, welcoming grunge rock in its most finest.

It was hard to swollow at first, but after awhile it all kinda sinked in...and I was then totally converted. Maka bermulalah zaman rock grunge and alternative music saya. Though later on, my list of listening evolved to Pearl Jam, The Stooges, Velvet Undeground, Stone Temple Pilots, Foo Fighters..and and and, it cannot be denied my admiration for them them stemmed from that first scream and thumping riff of The SoundGardens.

As my skills in guitar playing progress, so did the hunger to be technically proficient. In simple terms, that means nak jadi a bad-ass guitar player. I had enough of power chords and riffing highly distorted guitar. Also going up and down on the guitar neck playing scales as fast as humanly possible is a skill but not a musical expression. I wanted challenges and wanted to explore guitar playing at its finest. That got me into jazz. Acid, funky jazz to be specific. And the song that did it all was Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai. A friend set up a challange for me to figure out the piano opening using the guitar. It took me close to a month to figure it out but once I did it was so cool to play. You see Jamiroquai did not showcase the guitar extensively. No. But it was the successfull attempt to transcribe the song in guitar and improvise accordingly opened up my eyes to music interpretation, styling and soul. I guess it was the song that told me anything is possible with the guitar. And I never looked back.

As we get older, we accumulate experiences. The good and the bad. But mostly the bad sometimes overwhelm the good even if it is as minicule as an atom. The harder the challanges, the higher we go in life, the harder we fall. Being a Muslim its hard not to fall into the trappings of the comfort pill. But with every indulgence, regret is close by. However in spiritual grace comfort is more meaningfull. And for that the greatest loss that Malaysia have is the parting of one of the greatest lyricist of our time...Loloq.

But in M Nasir, he lives eternally in these songs. Nowdays, its these Nusantara and M Nasir's earlier works that lullaby me to rest from the humdrums of the hectic and ruthless world.

So thats it. The songs of my life. It can all be well described by Loloq when he said:

"Sedang tuhan, tahu sesiapa..untuk neraka untuk syurga. Aku kan terpaksa, memilih syurga, demi pengertian ku pada hukum alam. Dan sesunggunya, aku cinta, padamu tuhan walaupun sesat jalan."

Oh my God, what was the fuss all about?

Its Ramadhan. Thank God. Its the one and only month that its actually hip to be holy. I cant imagine I said that. But lets be honest...even my true blue clubbing friends are staying it off to attend Terawih prayers. Reasons are obviouslah...nak mintak ampun dan maaf.

Not that I club that much. Just sometimes I hang around some friends who do. But that is running out of the topic I wish to mention.

I had this sudden epiphany while driving to work 3 days ago. Standard stuck in a jam coz decided to take a few minutes (which ment extra 2 hours) of sleep after Subuh. Things got me thinking. Trust me as all would realise after leading quite a free-wandering life for a bit..I must say I accumulated a fare share of things I was not suppose to do. Ya ya you might argue that whats right or wrong is ones point of view...well at some point a person must define himself..and for me I feel I wish to define myself in what I believe in..

In short..life is kinda easy, if you think about it. Its the sticking to your principles and holding strong to faith thats what hard. Senang je nak concentrate in what your doing but try to do that to your ibadat? Very sure most of us fall flat on our faces.

The reasons I keep referring to ibadat is becouse..after all the care that my friends have been giving, and support from family.. I find peace in knowing that all cobaan dunia comes for a reason. And part of the thing here that helped me get over my recent heartache was...yes you know it..getting closer to God.

Ok..some will argue where does salsa fall into this? I'm not saying I'm perfect kan! But the crowd of people in that community are nice and most of them are not half drunk on the dance floor. So ..one step at a time Ahmad..one step at a time.

This brings me to my problem of love. So whats the big deal. I know now what really matters to me. And yes I know now what I have lost. And what I want to have back. So its a responsibility to find that soulmate. The one partner in your life.

Hang on. Found it. Yup. It was staring me in the face. Whatever I have denied cannot be denied. Though the feelings might not be there as what it use too. Over the years the desire I guess had faded, but faded it has just been. In time hopefully with a small but clear efforts to polish it up..it shall shine as bright as it was before.

What is important..what matters..a good heart, stable, fluent english (dont ask me about this), sweet, beautifull, kind, respective to elders, able to converse with my friends and accept me as who I am, knows everything about me but embraces the differences, intelligent..very intelligent, succesfull, independent and emotionally stable...what more..most importantly unhitched!!

So what am I waiting for? Exactly. Nak kawin kan? Want a great mother to a child and one that your children look up to kan?. Also proven track record of caring for your late mom when she was ill..translated to know what to do with your dad when he's is under the weather.

Thats it Ahmad. Go out there and get the girl. She already exist. Will you end up togather again?..Only God knows but here is God giving you a chance again..and with His blessing I seek that it be true.

So what if I failed again. At least I bled trying. And thats life.