I had very little doubt about what piece of music I wanted to start with. It had to be Shine on you crazy diamond by Pink Floyd. Why, because it moves me, uplifts me, inspires me and just makes me stop and admire it as a wonderful piece of music. Written as a tribute to Syd Barrett the mad genius who started Pink Floyd, it celebrates his soaring spirit. Gilmour's guitar work in the piece is wonderful, from its slow, almost solemn opening till it picks up and plays the melody alternating with the horn section. It is seven and a half minutes before we hear Waters voice but the affection and perhaps slight envy in his voice makes it a great emotional vocal.

Shine is one of those songs that means a great deal to me and conjures up vivid memories. It has been on my turntable for years. (Yes I confess I still love vinyl records.) However the times I remember it most are, for some reason, in Greece. Maybe it was because Pink Floyd owned an island in Greece but for some reason their music was very popular there, not quite as popular as Zorba obviously, but popular nevertheless.

The most vivid memory I have of Shine on was on the island of Zakynthos. I was on a wonderful beach with my wife at that time. The beach was called Turtle Beach, because of all the leatherback turtles that laid their eggs on the beach. I was very impressed by the Greeks. Here was this fabulous beach. It was a beautiful bay, crystal clear water, pristine white sand and there was nothing on it, no tavernas, restaurants nothing. It was a prime piece of real estate and a positive tourist trap and yet the Greeks had designated the beach a conservation area to protect the turtles. Very impressive.

The only structure on the beach was a small lean to with a roof made of reeds, a shaky counter and a railway sleeper as a bench. This lean to had an electric extension lead coming from who knows where, as there were no buildings for about a mile. This extension lead allowed the owner to have a fridge with cold beer and coke. Since it was high summer with equally high temperatures, my friend with the fridge was very very welcome indeed.

On that day there were about 6 people on the enormous beach. My wife and me, another couple further along the beach, a ranger to make sure that no one disturbed the turtles and friend with the fridge. In the middle of the afternoon I decided that I needed a cool drink so I wandered off to the lean to. Just as I arrived at the counter mine host put some music on the cd player. Yep it was Pink Floyd Wish your were here and there were the horns and Gilmour's guitar. I sat there under the reed roof with my new Greek friend as the beautiful sound washed over me. It just seemed so right. The beautiful music, in that beautiful place, my Greek friend who could speak no English smiling at me and me who could speak no Greek smiling back. We did not need words we we had the music as a common language. It is about as near to paradise as I'm likely to get in this world. When the music was finished I thanked my friend got a couple of cold drinks and wandered back along the beach to my wife. That was a good day!

I have included a video from YouTube of Shine on. Its not my favourite version but certainly a very interesting one.

Wow my Blog about music!

I'm coming to the Blogging game a bit late, both in time and in years. But hey who cares?? I'm getting a chance to talk about something I love. Music is something that has dominated my life. I have loved music for all of my life. For a while in my early teens I listened to and even pretended to like what was popular, until I started to find out what I actually liked.

I grew up in the 60s. As soon as I say that people tell me how lucky I am/was. With all that great music around it must have been wonderful. Go and have a look at the music charts of the 60s, there was some real crap around. True there was some great stuff that seems to fill all the compilation albums now, but at the time you needed to look for it. Personally I was never a great Beatles fan and still am not. I know that it is almost sacrilegious to say that now, but at the time there were so many far more interesting bands around, some of which I will talk about in this Blog.

Over the years my taste in music has changed, obviously. It has widened, less obviously, and has become very eclectic. I want to use this Blog to talk about tracks that mean a lot to me. This is my soundtrack. I have no intention of producing some chronological record. As a piece of music occurs to me I will talk about it, maybe about the piece of music itself, maybe about where it fits/fitted into my life, maybe what it means to me and why. This is not intended to be a critical review of music or pieces of music. This is an unapologetic personal Blog of my soundtrack. If anyone reads this and feels moved to comment then please do. All I ask is be respectful.