The opportunity to be enthralled

We all have a need to project ourselves in a way in which we feel will bolster our image. Some do it by buying a flash car or move to an address that others will think swanky. Some do it in the bar with outrageous hospitality buying drinks for everyone and generally being loud with their money. Others, who have a talent can express themselves through performing on stage, singing or playing an instrument, acting or dancing they are all forms of expression, of our need to communicate our special skills and aptitude, to enhance our ego and make people take note of who we are. This need for recognition is deep seated "no man is an island" and we all feel the desire to be praised for something we do well.
Sitting in a pub the other night I listened to a band who had formed around a music teacher who teaches percussion in one of the local schools. Slim with waist length, jet black hair he looked a throw back to the 60s Woodstock scene and one could only think what a heart throb he must be amongst the girls in the school. His songs full of meaningful lyricism were his own message to the audience about the issues that trouble him.
Songs are a way of storytelling, enhanced by the music, the words take on an imaginary image of life's pathos.
The Earl King sung by the great Russian Bass Feodor Chaliapin, a song of a father, his young son in his arms riding horse-back through the night the boy is dying and cries out "Oh Father, oh Father the Earl King is near " the father afraid, tries to calm the boy as he gallops on, the scene is heightened by the piano depicting the urgency and the dark forces swirling around the couple as they rush through the darkness. The last line as they reach home "but the little boy was dead" came as a vocal shock that I can remember to this day.
As a young lad, sitting in our tiny living room in front of the wind up record player with its large acoustic horn, like the ones seen on the His Masters Voice records with the dog listening close to the horn,  steel needles which had to be sharpened,  brittle shellac records. These were the ipods of our day.
Madam Butterfly, the haunting aria as Butterfly awaits Pinkerton, her American GI to return, knowing in her heart he was gone. The sound was full of crackles, the voice of Callas or Melba came through like a conduit into a world so far removed from our home, it was mystical. Arthur Rubinstein playing the piano, The Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan, this was our evenings pleasure, Dad and Mum and I sitting and listening, enthralled.
The pace of it all, a record at a time, no shifting around like a flea searching tracks, no TV to disturb the moment, only the radio and the record player, we were contented and felt enlightened, special that we had the opportunity to be enthralled !!!