Songs

Songs somehow find a way to stay with us. Some obscure entities in the present having their neat rhythms burned on cheap DVD’s, locked inside unopened drawers. Not played often but right there if needed; just like the chestnut-coloured suitcase containing the toys from your childhood hidden away in a damp, dark corner; the thin lines tracing back to another lifetime.

There’s a song for every occasion. Anywhere you go. Whatever it is that you might do. Some songs that are stuck inside your head forever regardless of the language they were originally written in. I have often likened their melody to molten chocolate cakes; only this time it oozes out memories through lyrics.

They are not just words bound by music, but a trigger for days long forgotten, stowed away in the back of your mind. The first time you walked through snow on a solo trip, that song that always played on the radio at the tea stall, the one you cannot remember no matter how long or how hard you hum, the song that always played when it rains, the songs that made you believe in love or the ones that helped you embrace heartbreak; some songs stand the test of time and manage to cling on to you.

When you finally decide to unpack that chestnut-coloured suitcase, touch those pullback cars or whatever remains of it, you fondly welcome back people to your shores that made those toys worth fighting for, even if it is only for a fleeting moment. All they are worth now is the emotional quotient that reminds you of your seasons in the sun.

So, on certain evenings, when you are walking on familiar streets alone and passing by the long glass windows of restaurants brimming with people, you fall back on certain songs. You fall back on certain people.

After all, what are people, but words seated next to each other wrapped in music.

Just like the songs.