Blackbird

It’s the first song you learn from your friend. He is surprised you’ve never heard this before. It’s a lazy Sunday morning again in that big house. You don’t see that many houses in this part of the world known more for high rise cookie-cutter housing blocks. It’s refreshing to see a house with a lawn (unmowed) and a verandah. Dried leaves are strewn all over the porch. It’s breezy so you don’t feel the heat that is going to reach the stifling level soon. You sit with your guitar and he teaches you section by section. It seems difficult at first, the picking style, the finger movement up and down the neck, and especially the finger positioning. So you are told to practise every section, master and move on. After a few weeks of practice, you feel you can play the whole song. And all it cost you was a six pack because he doesn’t accept money from friends. But the student always has to pay something for the lesson, and a six-pack of Heinekken is as good as any on a hot tropical day.