How Sez Sees It

On being a fan and the number of times it has saved me You hear this a lot (or read it a lot) if you go online and scroll through your twitter or tumblr timeline. Someone will be talking about how a particular song, band, tv show or film saved their life. You might not understand this way of thinking and I am genuinely happy for you because it means you have had the stability in your life to just enjoy things without them taking on a greater meaning for you. However, I am one of those people and I am going to explain how being a fan of different things at different times saved my life...in some cases literally! How Lord of the Rings saved me The year was 2001 and on 28 December I (just turned 15 years old) went to the cinema with my family to see the first in a trilogy of films adapted from the J.R.R. Tolkein series, The Lord of the Rings. This first instalment was called The Fellowship of the Ring and tells the story of a band of different peoples (Dwarfs, Elves, Men and Hobbits...

You hear about it all the time, someone says that a song/album/band changed or saved their life. Can it though? From personal experience I would say yes, although other factors come into play, such as the influence of my aunty. I believe I have written about her before. My aunty is 10 years older than me, so when I was 5/6 years old she was in her mid-teens. Her taste in music was Nirvana and it was her that introduced me to the band via their epic album ‘Nevermind’ by making a tape recording of it for me. Influenced by me ‘cool’ aunty, I began a life long love affair with all things rock. This was cemented in 1995 by my parents buying me a Smash Hits tape containing Green Day’s ‘Basket Case’. From then on the band soundtracked my life and I love them to this day. I feel I have ‘grown up’ with the band (which actually formed the year I was born!). That is the early influence where someone else changed, or rather set the course, of my musical love. From then on certain song...