Back in 5

When I was about 5, I had my first really profound musical experience -at least the first one I can remember of. An aunt of mine (I think) had bought me and my brother and sister a cassette with kids songs about animals, some of them Greek. In this collection there were tracks like Ska' Chou Chou, Da Da Da and other italodisco hits, while among them, there was a synth-pop track with no words (apart from some animal sounds) by Harry Thumann.

It may sound ridiculous at the dog barking part (which I didn’t like even then), but if you listen carefully throughout, it’s quite good. This, my friends, was the first time ever in my life, at that sensitive age of 5, when I had my first musical heartbeat, when I had the chills for a melody, when I’d secretly take my bro’s walkman and play it back and forth, rewinding and playing it again, until the batteries would leave me listening to it slo-mo and my brother would chase me around the house for leaving it battery-less.

At the age of 6 we moved to another house and sadly this cassette never appeared again.

When we reached the google and downloading times, I tried several times to search for that track, but I couldn’t remember neither the title of the compilation nor the title of the track. I could only vaguely remember the melody in the parts that I liked.

Yesterday, 32 years later, a friend of mine posted on facebook a pic with the covers of his first and ugliest albums. There was it. As soon as I googled it and saw the tracklist, I instantly reckognised the title -which kinda surprised me cause at the age of 5 I’m pretty sure I didn’t speak, read or write any English apart from "hello" and "Michael Knight" (major crush). Five seconds later, that first favorite melody of mine was unwinding through my speakers.

Can’t quite describe the feeling, but if I could have my 5-year-old self in front of me, I’d give me a big and tight hug for letting myself appreciate music and feel it with all my heart at such a young age, with so few stimulus back then.

Harry Thumann  isn’t with us anymore as of 2001 and I didn’t even know him till yesterday, but from now on he’ll be in my heart forever. *Woof woof*