12. Paint it Black- The Rolling Stones

For someone who loves music so much, it seemed obvious to want to join a band. I tried the guitar, I tried the piano, but it later turned out I was OK at hitting things in time. When they advertised drum lessons at school I remember the agony of fighting my shyness to be able to go up to the teacher afterwards and say that I wanted to learn. I loved learning to play the drums, talking to my slightly mad teacher about the blues, Jazz and the Rolling Stones. And then I got put in touch with a guitarist through a friend and Highly Dubious was born. We were a band who didn’t know how to play in time for the first year. My poor family had to put up with the sound of drums pounding out some kind of rhythm, Elli’s slightly off key singing and the endless repeats of Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones coming out of our garage every Sunday afternoon. For a whole year. We did get better, we got a singer and a bassist and two types of songs. We had fast depressing songs, and slow depressing songs. You get the picture. This song is so brilliantly dark, all they want to do is paint everything black. Sometimes that’s all you can do.