Just seen my nephew and family off at the station. They came over from the UK to visit us for a long weekend which was a lot of fun. Jerome is Carol's brother's son, but I've known him pretty much all his life as we first met in 1974 when he was one-and-a-half! They have a young daughter who's nearly two, plus another baby on the way. I am occasionally invaded by a powerful nostalgia for that same period in our own lives, when we were the generation at the centre of life. Anna, our youngest, is already nearly sixteen, so she won't be with us for much longer now. Having had children in the house since 1976, it will be strange to no longer have a little life-source under our roof.

Jerome's discovered Pink Floyd and was thrilled to find I had some "on vinyl". He used the same sort of tone I might have used for my auntie's old "78's"! I only have the two albums, "Meddle" and "Dark Side of the Moon", but listening to them again after all these years was another experience which induced aching pangs of nostalgia. Of course, not all of it stands the test of time, but even the rather pompous "prog rock" stuff is a complete time-machine. Of the two, on balance I prefer "Meddle" which brings something more positive than "Dark Side". But then again "Dark Side" is, by definition, an exploration of the, well, dark side.
"Echoes", the song which starts with the asdic bleep and lasts the whole of the second side of "Meddle", is forever associated in my mind with a particular experience. While at University I spent a lot of time climbing and on one occasion I was hitch-hiking back to Newcastle after a trip to the Scottish Highlands. I got a lift heading South down the A9 at Newtonmore from some guy with a fancy motor and, wonder of wonders, a car stereo! We barrelled on to Dalwhinnie and, breasting hill after hill, we surged exhilaratingly up over the Drumochter pass and cruised effortlessly on down to the Vale of Atholl, all to the magical soundtrack of "Echoes". It was one of those special youthful moments pregnant with a strange nostalgia for the future, for the infinite richness of possibility which life seems to offer. How strange to feel nostalgia for a sense of nostalgia!
Some songs have, as it were, a built-in sense of nostalgia and somehow evoke that same sentiment regardless of the age of the listener. This is true of "A Pillow of Winds", the second track on the album. A love song, or rather a song about the psychic sensations which accompany the state of being in love. In its hippyish, Piscean way it somehow captures that barely-conscious, intuitive sense of being in contact with some deep sense of meaning, as:

...I lie

With my love by my side

And she's breathing low.

"Fearless" is also a great track with a message which we can all use:

You say the hill's too steep to climb

Climb it

It's the one that finishes with the Kop singing "You'll Never Walk Alone", as though to say that once you truly commit to a project, Providence is duty-bound to come to your assistance. (Interesting also to hear how football crowds sounded different back then.)

The album cover of "Echoes" is one of the emblematic features of the early seventies. Handling those old albums is one of those rituals of which the younger generation is tragically deprived. A CD, still less a computer download, just doesn't do it! The inside cover with the black-and-white photographs of the boys in all their hirsute grandeur is another nostalgia-trigger. The hippie era was full of hypocrisy and pretence, but one thing it did have is conspicuous now by its absence - the sense that it is proper and legitimate to be a seeker of wisdom and truth. Less and less today are people allowed "not to know" and are therefore forced to hide their innocence behind a mask of knowing irony, which, over time, hardens and stifles the real person.

Of course "Dark Side of the Moon" is also a great album. Recently, late one Friday night, when I was too lazy even to go to bed, I watched a thing on TV about how the album was recorded. I couldn't help being struck by David Gilmour, King of the Hippies, looking like an overweight solicitor wearing his weekend jumper! But he can still sure play! It was fascinating to learn just how "hands on" their use of the new synthesiser and recording technology was back then - a work of art in itself. They explained how in the writing they were definitely confronting difficulties they had encountered within themselves and in the world about them. "Breathe", "Time", "Money" are all excellent tracks and you need a lot of positive energy to look honestly at negative stuff. But still, to say life is meaningless, we're all going to die and society is based upon superficial values isn't enough. It seems to me that, if you break the eggs, you'd damn well better try and make an omelette!