To follow a theme

As I have mentioned a couple of times already, I have tried to make the best of an awful situation and catch up with some of my old schoolmates, with which I never had a chance to meet before, even after 30 years. Recently I found the whereabouts of a friend who, back in 1987, introduced me to the wonderful world of heavy metal (and which I have not truly left ever since).

One of the things that attracted me the most from this genre is their unabashed display of fantastic iconography, in strong contrast with other urban tribes of the time, which were much more down-to-ground. At the time I was already a fan of fantasy and science-fiction and, although I carried myself in a very conventional way, I knew that my heart was beating the rhythms of metal and even the first trends of cyber-punk.

I do not remember precisely if the first cassette I actually owned was "The Final Countdown", by the Swedish band Europe, or "Whitesnake" by the homonymous British band, but I am sure that I spent hours on end shaking my head to those electric guitar riffs.

Many years later, after I had long settled into family life and heavy metal was only a kind of lonely guilty pleasure, I ran into this chart that warped me back in time:

Graph: Dougie Horner on eartli

I remember it now because it contains (as it could not be otherwise) several of my favorite bands of the time, like Def Leppard, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Motörhead and Whitesnake. The chart was prepared as a joke by stand-up comedian Doogie Horner back in 2009, but it demonstrates my initial point that heavy metal bands did not have a problem (I should say that they embraced them) with themes that were taboo for many other types of music. Of course, once you went deeper into their iconography, the music and the lyrics were not that limited in scope and covered many aspects of life as well, not just the myths and the gods.

As long as I can remember my parents always encouraged me to find my own way ahead and to escape the trodden path whenever it was necessary (although just walking through the underbrush is harder, so I'd better have a reason for it). It seems that already at age 13 the message had born fruit and I was considering my options with only limited regard for what the general consensus was. I did not always chose the socially accepted path, but I tried to follow the one that I though was right, the one that followed my own theme. I can only hope from these lines that this idea is inspiring to someone. Enjoy the evening.