What is it about First Love?

is the question that has been making me go Plato since yesterday. Why is it that your first love never ceases to be in your life? Never goes away for good? You cut-off all bonds, try your damnedest to move on, endow your affections, in far greater measure, on new objects, but you look within, and you look hard enough, and there is this tiniest of spaces in your heart still occupied by that vestige of the past. And it scares you so because you see in that tiny trickle a real possibility of a deluge. All it needs is a push and a prod and its there, right at the forefront.

Richard Marx, this rock artist from the late 80's and early 90's, used to be my most favorite of all musicians, his music, my most adored. His tracks dominated my playlists for the better part of three years. But then, towards the beginning of my 12th, i went through this phase of musical stagnation. Marx and other favorites like Lionel Richie, George Michael, Linkin Park, Evanescence,The Rasmus to name a few got boring, and hitherto untried bands didn't seem interesting enough to have their albums downloaded and listened to track-by-track. And then i went to NIT.

NITR, with its DC++, enabled immediate, lightning speed and free downloading of almost any album by almost any band, and of course, plenty of free time to try them out too. So, sometime in early september, what i did was format my entire playlist and put in a whole new stock of tracks. In came Skillet, Nirvana, Daughtry, Alterbridge, Creed, Switchfoot, Coldplay, Celldweller et al. It went like, "Hey this song seems pretty neat, let me get the full album" and more often than not, i liked the album too. I was so fed up with my old favorites that i remember vowing to myself never ever to listen to those artists or those songs again (towards august i would sit and scroll through the songs, searching for something which might remotely be less listened to than the others). And i hadn't. That is until yesterday.

A week back i got myself a guitar. Too tired and bored of playing the same chromatic scales and those retarded nursery rhymes again and again, i decided to search the tabs of some good slow songs that i, with my nascent skills, could pull off. Yeah, i tried some coldplay and greenday shit, but playing and changing cords with the required speed turned out to be too much for me. And then, flash of light. Surely the intro music of Right Here Waiting by Marx was something worth trying. I mean the beat is pretty sluggish and it involves only plucking of single strings. I downloaded the tabs and voila! i could play the tune within an hour of trying. Really playing that tune by myself, as i felt the music come out of my own fingertips, it reminded me of just how poignant and beautiful it was. Individual notes assembled with pure genius and finesse' to give rise to the tune that was Marx's coup de grace. I went over to youtube and gave the original song a listen. For a moment, i was back to being that 15 year old kid who had heard the opening piano solo for the first time in a random collections' cd. I remembered in exact detail, how i had felt at that time, maybe because, in a certain measure, i felt that way again. i saw the video 3 more times. That was day before yesterday.

Yesterday, thanks to mininova.org and my internet plan that permits free downloads of upto 2.5 GB, i got a Best Of... collection of Richard Marx. I have listened to that album top to bottom thrice already. From the classic ol' school rock n roll feel of Satisfied to the hauntingly beautiful strains of Hold On To The Nights to the euphonious use of the saxophone in Endless Summer Nights; from the surreal Hazard to the smooth and suave touch of Touch Of Heaven to the mellifluous, yet a bit heavy-ish Angelia; from the laid-back Keep Coming Back to the masterpiece that is Right Here Waiting, each one of these songs enraptured, enthralled and liberated me. I can't believe i had been missing out on these for such a long time. Or is it that that i hadn't listened to these songs for such a long time that made me enjoy them so much? Maybe your first love never goes away. Maybe its there all the time while you wander off after other pursuits, liking and doting stuff you think you love more than that one. And while that might be true, your first passion is just behind the curtains waiting, because after a long enough break, all that is required is the tiniest of sparks to remind you how exactly it had made you feel THEN. I know i am listening to a lot of Richard Marx now, but am i gonna give up on Kurt Cobain for him? Or am i gonna prefer him over Switchfoot? I don't think so, because there is a reason we use the word "FIRST" in First Love. At the end of the day, they are picture-perfect sweet recollections to be treasured, cherished, honoured and, while in the midst of your REAL and PRESENT life, to be dwelt upon once in a while. It will make you smile, trust me.