The music that my parents used to listen to on the radio is still played at home.
It is music from the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Besides that, they also loved listening to the traditional Fado music, music from Portugal and Lisbon, my home city.
Famous music like “Dancing Queen” by Abba (one of my mother’s favourite), “Ain’t no Mountain High Enough” by Marvin Gaye and the legendary “Baker Street” by Gerry Raferty has been present through my life growing up.
Fado was listened mainly on the weekends especially at my grandparent’s house as they lived in a typical Lisbon bairro (Portuguese name for a small neighbourhood).
I always heard my grandparents old neighbour singing through the window while I was playing outside.
He was a retired mechanic and was always playing Fado music especially those from the bogged legends of Fado, Amalia Rodrigues and Carlos do Carmo.
My first memory of someone singing to me was my mother, before putting me in to bed she always sang the music "Na Cabana Junto a Praia" sung by José Cid, it is a lyric that I personally love, not only because it touches on a memory when I was a child, but it is a lyric of love and has a melody that is very romantic and moving.
I remember my mother after having had an operation on her vocal cords a few years ago, trying to sing this song and feeling disappointed and sad with herself because singing was something she had always loved and after the operation it was no longer the same voice, but as I always told her and I always say, her voice marked my childhood, and influenced me a lot in my life, because without music I can't work, and that's thanks to my mum and dad that every time we cooked we had music playing and every time we sang and danced.
These are memories that during this pandemic we will not be able to repeat again, but it is moments like these that make us who we are daily, and that offer us a better way of living.
The pandemic brought a lot of bad things to our mental health but personally made me reflect with life, moments that we always took for granted and now we can't have them, the pandemic made me realize that we have to live every moment as if it was the last, whether it is music, family or school.
Life during this last year has turned around, Everything that we programmed and dreamed of was destroyed or postponed, teaching us to accept a “No” and to understand that we have to be stronger and improve our lives.
We Have learned to remember things that we miss and dreams that were not realized.
I can say that this pandemic made me stronger, and taught me not to give up.
The music was a help and inspiration to me during the Lockdown.
Francisco Diońisio