In the ears of children

The Daily Haiku for Jan 25. In the ears of children.

Broken melodies
can still sound beautiful in
the ears of children

During my last year in college, I attended a concert at the university. There were only two bands, and I knew only the main act. Their music was heavily influenced by the Beatles and King Crimson, two acts I was a lot into, so I wanted to ask them to join the band.

However, it was the opening act that blew my mind off. They were "In the ears of children", and I'd never heard music like that before. They had no singer, only drums, guitar, bass, and lost of pedals. The drummer had a very spare kit, ride cymbal, snare and bass drums. Then they started playing this mind-blowing music, that could go from totally minimalistic, clearest and delicate, to a roaring wall of noise.

I was mesmerized, and at some point, the guy I'd gone to the concert with asked me: "do you like this noise?". That question caught me by surprise, as I thought that sound my ears had never heard before was absolutely beautiful. So I said "Yes". He shrugged and said "Perhaps you are listening to it through the ears of children".

Edit: I found a video of In The Ears Of Children (thanks to a common friend, thanks Alfonso!). This is a live recording from Murcia, south of Spain, from a regional TV, almost 20 years ago, so don't judge it by today's production standards :). This music may seem too overdone now, after the explosion of post-rock of the 2000's, but back in 2002, it was something really groundbreaking.

That band (extinct by now) had a huge influence in the direction my musical tastes would evolve into in the following years. So if it is true that children can find beauty in everything, I wonder if we should start remembering what it was like to see the world, smell the world, taste the world, hear the world and touch the world like we did when we were children.