[ 09.2010 | Heidelberg ]

I recently saw a light switch that said: ‘music: on. world: off.’

I guess this is pretty much the essence. I often real­ize I have a lot of ‘signif­icant others’. I mean songs. songs that were either once my favor­ite or songs to which I have – for which­ever reason – another sort of emo­tional bond. having devel­oped a personal tie, be it because of the capti­vating melody (- what attracts us at the begin­ning) or through div­ing deeper into the touch­ing lyrics (- and then you get to expe­rience the struc­tures behind the façade) or just because it is a memory of some sort. but each of these songs does still move me in a way. or in another. because of their story.

.rewind the meanings. forward the feelings.

in 2010, a friend took me to a tiny special concert of Skunk Anansie in Heidel­berg. not that I’ve been a fan, but stand­ing not even 2m from Skin and her three colleagues was an expe­rience. the British rock band formed in 1994, separated in 2001 and reformed eight years later. the name comes from Akann folk tales of Anansi, the spider-man of Ghana, – with ‘skunk’ added to ‘make the name nastier’. so far, the four musi­cians have released six studio albums and had several hit singles, e.g. Charity, Hedonism, and Weak.

.pause the time. stop the world. play the happiness.

speaking, singing, scream­ing out the words, Skin might not stand for ‘mouth­peace’ – a word I made up, deriving from the musical term ‘mouth­piece’. but brass instru­ments are not the main interest today. instead, the interest should be to open our mouths for peace. against violence. on the Inter­national Day of Non-Violence, annu­ally held on the birth­day of Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian pioneer of the philos­ophy and strat­egy of non-violence.

sources: skunkanansie.net | dictionary.com | un.org