I was ten, I remember, hearing Percy Sledge for the first time, singing Warm and Tender Love. It was a Sta-soft advert, a fabric softener brand. The imagery is still with me; vividly, the fabric softener falls gently on a comfy blanket in slow-mo, whilst the song plays. That for me was the best feeling to reach inside the tv and borrow. He was singing an anomaly, Percy. Something unreal to my existence. I knew that despite being unequal to the task of expressing it. Yet he sang it so well little did I know it would become the unheard humming soundtrack on many playing days. I knew it had to be real, somewhere inside, and looked forward to the commercial all the time.
It wasn\'t until quite later in life though, that I could understand the life-long question mark attached to the acute sting in the lyrics for me; that it was asking what love is, and what it means. I guess some things are indelible like that. The feeling of it takes on new meaning now, in the eyes of my little one, singing along innocently, having no idea how different it once felt, and how much more a gift her voice is to me, softening the fabrics of these once broken strings, even long after the scars have healed. My teardrops today, are pennies, and my heartaches are gold.