Searching for music is

not something I need to do very often. I needed to do it yesterday because someone called in and asked me about something I thought I had never heard.

"It was in the sixties Cat. You must know it. It is driving me mad. I can't think of it. It goes like this..." 

Oh yes, "It goes like this..." I thought to myself. Perhaps it did. It was equally possible that the person in question had "misremembered" it. She does not describe herself as being "musical". Why she thought I should be able to remember something still puzzles me.

I was one of those rare teenagers who was not firmly attached to "the radio". I did not wander the streets holding one. There was no such noise in our house. The Senior Cat listened to the early morning news on "the ABC" (our Downunder equivalent of the BBC, not the US version). We were expected to remain silent while that happened. It was a bit like going to church on Sunday and being expected to repeat the sermon. There was just a chance he might ask something to be sure at least his two eldest kittens had been listening.

Apart from that the radio did not get turned on again until the evening news service from the same source.  Even then it did not always happen...and there was always the paper to read.  The paper was a news source in those days - the first ever one from the Murdoch stable.

But news services and papers do not teach you about the music teens were listening to at the time. We heard snatches of it when we were in other places but we knew very little about it. There were occasional songs which one of our teachers taught us. We were incredibly proud of J.... he often appeared on ABC television as a "filler" - someone who would provide a few minutes of entertainment in between other programmes. It was because of J... we knew about the "Yellow Submarine" and "Lily the Pink" but he also taught us about "The Quartermaster's Store" and "Gaudeamus Igitur".  

"Try again," I told the person standing there and looking at me in so much frustration. It did sound vaguely familiar - but not quite right. I listened three more times. It was not like trying to do reverse image search on the computer. 

Then she said, "I think the organist at my church played it once. He gets a bit modern sometimes."

I had it then and said, "I think I have it...but it's Bach...they borrowed it and did things to it."

"It isn't Bach. He's been dead for ages, long before they wrote it." 

I found Procul Harum's "A whiter shade of pale". Yes, that was what she had been trying to find. Her version was barely recognisable even when I had the church organist reference. I showed her the more than one reference to Bach that came up with it.

"I didn't have it exactly right did I? Still can't believe that Bach wrote anything that modern."

She went off happily enough but I played it through again. Modern? Perhaps...or perhaps music has no age.