Catching up with an old friend and new music

I have few friends, it's just the way I am, some people have lots of them, but probably a lot of people just have a few or certainly a handful at most.  It all depends on what you call a friend, the extent of the friendship.  It's possible there are various categories.  This evening I ran up an old friend.  I've known him for 38 years and seen him less as the years have passed.  But he's someone I love.  Next birthday he will be 80, so this old friendship is more than just old in years.  My ex English teacher.  It was great having a discussion with  him on the phone.  Like me he likes to talk politics and put the world to rights.  We discussed the plight of the economy, Europe, the decline and change of our culture, Greece, Spain, the Euro, a Prime Minister and cabinet full of millionaires and impending financial breakdown.  Before I knew it we had been chatting for an hour and twenty minutes.  There's a kind of realisation when a conversation has been going for a long time it should come to an end.  When he hits his next birthday it will be a significant day.  I can't help feel sad because as each year now passes it is more likely he will not be around, when he has been a stable influence, confidant and help to me.  I then get choked up and sad.  We all have to go some day, it's a fact.  But it will mean my available friends have now diminished to the point they are generally in some way related to me rather than direct friends.

How the hell, do you make new friends and keep them again I wonder.  For to have a friend means a commitment to catching up with them at some time.  Usually the start of friendships begin with seeing each other on a regular basis.  Friendships can build up in the workplace, however if they are purely in the workplace they are more of a colleague rather than friend. Sometimes there are fleeting moments when I have met someone and hit it off with them.  Had a laugh and enjoyed their company, but those moments would just be the once and mean little more.  Again this is a little sad.  Yet a friend is someone you generally know quite well.  Their likes, their habits, their peculiarities, and regardless these aspects of personality are accepted.  Unless of course there is the significant event which breaks up the relationship. Which happens; or you just drift apart through time or distance.  Friendship, is more than just company, although being in someone's company can be fulfilling, being a friend has a level of involvement and is a two way street. Sometimes it comes to an end, that's life, sad but true.

I may have revealed my inability to learn songs before, well I'm just restating this point.  However, unlike a lot of people I know who seem to be stuck in a musical era, I do have a curiosity to listen to contemporary music and new bands and the recent hits.  It's an urge which jumps up on me every so often.  Sometimes a couple of times a year sometimes a couple of times a month.  It just does.  So my appreciation of music also becomes contemporary.  Odd how I can name band (when I remember them) that some people around me have never heard of and pull out of the hat groups where are three or more decades old.  Well, this evening I've come across a band called Metronomy.  They have an electric sound, which takes me back to what used to be called New Age Romantics.  And the great thing is discovering something by yourself, you like, by accident, and you can't get enough of it.  So I've say here the last hour or so searching through YouTube and finding every song I could by Metronomy and playing it.  I don't know if this is the same for everyone else.  It's not like people purposefully go out of their way to listen to old music, but they do to new music.  Old music is something you might hear as part of a film, and think the track was good and wonder who it was who did it, only to find it was years ago and the artist or group were no more than a one hit wonder.  Something I personally dislike are the groups or artists who are one album or one hit wonders.  I like artists to stay around for as long as possible, the more albums the better.  It shows they were special because they persevered and left a mark.  Metronomy are going to be around for a little while, I hope.  Like a friend.  Except with this one all I got to do is select the tray and play the music to be transported to a different place.  For 3 minutes or so anyway.   Then it ends, as does a lot of things.