The language we speak deep inside.

Today, admiring one more utterly idiotic, overly enthusiastic posting from someone I know on Facebook, I once again felt my eternal gratitude for this fantastic social networking invention. Besides letting us quickly share jokes and photos and spy on our ex’s; Facebook can, in one quick stroke, paint a clear, fast picture of someone you might be just getting to know, and save you a lot of wasted time. Just something very simple that a person, unprovoked and unasked, shares online can give you a clear glimpse into their mind and, more often than not, warn you not to ever go there.

So many people, who seem completely normal face to face, suddenly become pretty weird on Facebook.  It truly is fascinating, don’t you find?

Anyway, what was I actually trying to talk about? Oh yes. About music.

The other afternoon, on the way from school, I tried to share my new favourite song with my big daughter. In my obsession with Aspire, I got into it at one of the classes, where we all, no matter where from, enjoy the stretching to this French tune. My child was not enthusiastic. ‘Nuh, I don’t like it’, she said before I even switched the song on. ‘I don’t like songs in other languages’, she added. ‘I don’t understand anything they are saying’.

‘Just try!’ I begged her. I explained to her that with music, it is simply magical. Listen to the singer’s voice, listen to the emotions, and you will enjoy it, I promise, I said. Don’t worry about the actual words, or what they mean.

And, despite being pretty determined against foreign songs, and for some peculiar reason, French ones in particular, as soon as the music stopped, she paused and said, reluctantly: ‘Again.’

It got me thinking about the amazing power the music has on all of us, no matter where we are right now, or where we come from. Just look at all those women in Aspire, I thought, from Arabic to Eastern European and Chinese, all of us affected by this one French song, asking the trainer at the end of the class to play ‘that song’. Again. Just like my 9 year old asked me. (I know you all are dying to hear it now, so here it is).

Not only has music always been my best coping mechanism for many situations in life, including long journeys- from the delayed tube commuting in London to traffic nightmares of Doha-it is also a useful tool, just like Facebook, in quickly determining whether you have anything in common with someone. Sitting in a hot Doha garden with my Spanish friend, sipping rum and coke on a Monday night- as you do…- I shared my French song with her. ‘Ver-ry nice!’ She exclaimed in her exquisite accent.

‘Have you heard of this Kizomba? Very big in Spain now!’ And she proceeded to show me a video that only a few days ago a Russian friend had sent me.

And at a party last night, admittedly drunk, she and I had a (probably rather pathetic) go at our Kizomba moves. One more amazing musical phenomenon, originated in Angola, taking Spain by storm, bringing my Russian friend and her American boyfriend together, and even making me and my Spanish friend stand up and embarrass ourselves in front of more sensible people. 

Because whatever language we all communicate in, music will always be the language we speak deep inside. The language of our emotions, the language of what we really are.  And a useful tool that helps us tune in and find those who are on the same wavelength (even if it is not so apparent at first, because of the cultural and language differences) and those who are….well, on an entirely different planet altogether.