#oneaday Day 91: Farewell, Keith Flint

Earlier today, I was immensely saddened to hear of the passing of Prodigy frontman Keith Flint from apparent suicide. He was just 49 years old; that's no age to go at.

I won't go over the usual platitudes that are usually shared at times like this because they've doubtless already been heard all over the Internet several times already today; instead, I'll simply say that I hope he has found peace far away from this troubled world.

I did, however, want to mention exactly what his music meant to me, and thus what his lasting legacy will be for me personally. Because it was a surprise to me that I even got into it in the first place.

Growing up, I wasn't really sure how to develop the "right" opinions about music. My parents mostly approved of me listening to classical music because I was studying piano (and later clarinet and saxophone) and presumably thought this would be a good influence, but as a youngster I craved something that would help me relate a little more to my peers. But what?

The first album I ever bought was Definitely Maybe by Oasis, who were super-cool at the time. Unfortunately I purchased this album literally the day before (What's the Story?) Morning Glory came out, so that didn't help my cool points at all. This is not relevant to the story as a whole, but it's a fun detail that I can look back on and laugh at now.

I wasn't big on electronic music of any variety at the time. This was partly due to a fundamental dislike of music that didn't really have much of a "tune" to it, and also, again, partly down to my parents' influence. They didn't like it, so I felt like I probably shouldn't look into it. (I'd like to clarify at this point that I don't resent my parents' tastes in music whatsoever and indeed there's a lot of stuff that they like that I now like; most of what I describe here is my own childish assumptions about how to develop my own tastes!)

There were two things that changed my thinking on electronic music, though. The first was my first girlfriend Anna, or more specifically her father Richie. Richie was cool. I wasn't familiar with this. I thought my Dad was pretty awesome in various ways (and indeed still do) but Richie was cut from a different cloth to my Dad. He listened to modern music, for one, and specifically he listened to electronic dance music. His daughter wasn't embarrassed to be interested in the same music as him, either, so through a combination of various "Ibiza" albums heard in the car while getting lifts back from various school parties (at which we absolutely were not underage drinking, nosirree) and the music we would typically make out to, I started to understand the appeal of electronic music.

The second was a school trip — I forget where to, but I do remember that for one reason or another, I ended up sitting next to my classmate and namesake Peter. I was never quite sure how I felt about Peter; sometimes we'd get along, sometimes we wouldn't. He wasn't cool, but I'm pretty sure I was even less cool than he was. One time the cool kids in our year tried to arrange A Fight between the pair of us after school. Neither of us attended. He's a furry now.

But I digress. While I was sitting next to Peter, in an uncharacteristic display of willingness to socialise, I asked what he was listening to on his Sony Discman. It turned out to be the single "Breathe" by Prodigy. He invited me to listen. I did. I was absolutely blown away by it; that single was the next CD I bought after that school trip.

From there, I decided to check out the rest of Prodigy's back catalogue, including The Prodigy Experience and Music for the Jilted Generation. I found myself really enjoying both, once again feeling like I'd discovered something that I'd been missing out on, that I was beginning to understand something that had remained out of reach.

Those albums were CDs that I regularly put on all the way through my time at university. They accompanied through late-night essay-writing sessions, through parties-for-no-reason held at various people's houses and flats, and just through life in general. While most of those tracks aren't things that you could "hum", they're all incredibly memorable tracks that, over time, became important to me; meaningful. Not for any particular reason, mind — they just became associated with a time in my life where, for a brief period, I was truly, unconditionally happy.

I think I will bust out those albums for the first time in quite a while this evening in honour of Keith. Rest in peace, sir; you and your friends made quite the impression on me during an exciting and scary period in my life, and I'll be forever grateful for those good times.