I am not one to mock the afflicted, unless the afflicted are
a) a wonky eyed singer*
b) a one armed drummer
c) a rhombus faced popstrel
d) the blind – when the blind in question are Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder
e) actually I’m probably going to run out of letters when I get to…
z) deaf composers
And even then I won’t have had a chance to get on to junkie members of Wet Wet Wet. So yes, I am one to mock the afflicted. Which makes me feel a touch better about this story, where a young American lady had the misfortune of having seizures every time she heard Sean Paul’s Temperature. So what, I initially thought, I have seizures whenever I see a busker (admittedly the seizing in question is of their poorly tuned guitars, and I tend to batter them with it, but its the same KIND OF thing). But reading on I thought I saw a glimmer of hope for my particular situation. What if my hatred of music was just something wrong with MY brain, and not infact a failing of all music ever. What if I could have a piece of my brain removed, I could then fit in with the normal people and go to Razorlight gigs**. All it would take is a removal of a three inch piece of my temporal lobe.
HOLD ON! I’m not getting three inches of my brain taken out just so I can like Sean Paul. In the first instance I don’t really want brain surgery for such a trivial thing. But mainly because I suggest I would need to take out considerably more than three inches of MY brain to make Mr Paul’s soft ragga chattering even vague palatable. Instead I would much rather consider the option of sewing my ears up. But all of this would be predicate don the idea that my view of music as the root of all evil was in some way wrong. Which it isn’t. Consider this quote from the supposedly afflicted Stacey Gayle about Sean Paul:
“I think his music is awesome,” she said.“Now I can see why everyone liked this song.”
If it takes REMOVING PART OF YOUR BRAIN to appreciate Sean Paul, it suggests to me that Sean Paul is in fact shit. Rare condition my arse. Ms Gayle had seen the truth, her body had rebelled but the MAN tried to hide her so gave her a lobotomy. And they say we live in a free society***.
*A kind of think wonky eyed singer at that who could not foresee with his wonky eye that biggerst band in world + secret gig in tiny shop = disaster.
**OK, my fantasy was probably going to far there. Even people who GO to Razorlight gigs hate Razorlight.
***NOT A FREE JAZZ SOCIETY!