these songs of freedom.

As a matter of principle, I try not to like music that doesn't mean anything.

For me, it really isn't about escaping the labels of being conformist or mainstream. I just love what music does to you. It can make everything seem so much better. Or worse. It puts the feelings you weren't sure you had, into words that rhyme - what can be bad about that? Also, I mean I don't have flowers in my hair or a braided belt wrapped round my head or anything but I'm still a firm believer that music could change the world, man.

Jimi Hendrix once said that:

'Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.'

In days gone by, music changed everything. It changed the way people thought about the world and their place in it. I wish it still had that capacity but somehow looking at the charts, I'm not convinced.

In those days music was the spirit of slaves, the protest to war, the way to get things done. Or undone.

That might be why I always feel guilty when I find myself unwittingly singing along to those Top Twenty pop hits on the radio. And why I have a secret playlist on my ipod filled with all the songs I'm too ashamed to admit I like - full of uninspiring lyrics haphazardly thrown together more for their rhyming potential rather than their meaning and set to a hauntingly catchy tune that I can't help but love.

Despite my secret indulgences, I do try and stay loyal to the cause (loving music that displays its purity as an art form, music that struggles against the man to define itself, music that means something).

It’s hard though. Sometimes you don’t want some lyrical genius to articulate your every thought. Or fear. Or regret. Sometimes it's not enough that a songwriter a million miles away is thinking what I'm thinking - that in these lyrics of a stranger echo the ramblings of my heart.

Sometimes you just want to forget and get lost in a string of ‘ooh ooh oohs’ and ‘baby baby babys’ so it doesn’t hurt so much.

Lesson Five: Where words fail; music speaks.

You can't hear it if you're not listening; turn it up & let it speak to you.

xx