Making Love Out Of Nothing At All - Air Supply (1983)

Out of all Jim Steinman compositions, this must be my favourite. I happily admit I admire many other Air Supply songs too, but this power ballad has long since been my number one.

More to come, on the reasons why.

Key lines:

Every time I see you all the rays of the sun
Are streaming through the
waves in your hair,
And every star in the sky is taking aim
At your eyes
like a spotlight,

The beating of my heart
is a drum, and it’s lost
And it’s looking for a rhythm like you.
You can take the darkness
from the pit of the night
And turn into a beacon
burning endlessly bright.
I’ve got to follow it,
’cos everything I know,
well it’s nothing ’til I give it to you.

MUSIC FOR MY WORLD

I'm no Lester Bangs. To tell you the truth, I've never read him. I have no musical ability - by that I mean, I play no instrument. But I possess a serious love of music. I just can't imagine life without it.

Much as I love drums and guitars, it don't mean a thing if I don't dig the lyrics. (Funnily enough, for a writer). And the idea of expressing to you what I love about certain pieces of popular music is both a challenge, and a powerful motivator for me.

I'm also a list maker from way back (only child and all that), and there's an obsessive fascination with reducing life's excess to the essentials: could I compile one CD to cover all necessary moods and occasions, one CD that would be the one and only one I'd ever need to listen to.

Of course, it's a futile exercise, in practice. Even though most of my musical interests are historical (not much newer than about 1995), I could never get by with just one CD of music.

But it's fun imagining.

ON SELECTION CRITERIA

I was thinking about whether I could define any of the selection criteria for my favourite songs, and I realised one thing they all have in common, is their perceived appropriateness to be played at my funeral.

Or, to put it another way, to be played as the last song I'll hear.

This reveals a couple of aspects to my personality even I wasn't really aware of until I put it down in words.