Neal Ascherson, author and journalist
What song brings back a cherished memory?
When I was a student at Cambridge in the 1950s I met a lot of Africans, in effect refugees who had been trying to overthrow apartheid. They brought with them vinyl records of African music, which I loved. The music I really fell for was by Jean-Bosco Mwenda, the grandfather of Congolese guitar music. And the one I loved most was Masanga, which is really a dance – rich and repetitive music, with layers and patterns and the most daring rhythms.
What does hearing Masanga evoke for you?
It evokes the room I had at Cambridge in the 1950s, old and shabby, but with a gramophone in the corner. I’m trying to write an essay and listening to this wonderful, deeply reassuring, moving stream of music. And with me are one or two people who’ve come round to see me – some of them African intellectuals involved in anti-colonial struggles, perhaps my best friend, who was a Ugandan. And the music is intoxicating. It’s like drinking some wonderful, magical, reassuring drink that fills you with confidence and clears your head.
Is there music that takes you back to young love?
Oddly enough, the Polish national anthem. Although it can sound very solemn, it’s actually a dance tune. And when I hear it, I remember the first time I was in Warsaw, a young journalist in 1957, when Poland had thrown off direct control by the Soviet Union and was open to the world.
I’d met this beautiful girl, an art student, who took me out to an old palace on the outskirts of Warsaw called Wilanów. We walked along the lake. It was November and a bitter east wind was beginning to blow in little gusts from Siberia. And in the lake something extraordinary was happening.
There were reeds in this lake, and each reed had developed a tiny little collar of ice round it, floating on the surface. As the wind blew they touched each other and rang, like little bells. We just looked at each other and began to dance. We danced by the side of the lake, twirling round and round, listening to these little bells.
We’re still in touch. She married someone else. But whenever I hear the Polish national anthem I think of that scene, because for me she was Poland.
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