I don't mean in the car, or while washing the dog, or making love. How do we perceive music? Do we all perceive it in the same way?

Nope.

Most people listen to a song and the words leap out at them [citation required]. I rarely hear the words. Even when they're vitally important, such as lyrics by The Smiths.

I was surrounded by music since birth: Handel, Winifred Atwell, The Beatles, Dicks and Rudge, the list goes on. But it was always the sounds that fascinated me - not the message. It wasn't until aged eight that a song's words really sunk in for the first time. I was in the kitchen watching my mother making cake when a song came on the radio. Being raised in a modest household, I knew nothing about exotic locations like Amsterdam. And that story of a mouse somehow captured this young boy's imagination.

I saw a mouse

Where?

There on the stair

Where on the stair?

Right there

A little mouse with clogs on

Well, I declare

Going clip clippity clop on the stair

Oh yeah

The next lyrics that I 'heard' and made any sense were in a Joe Jackson song some 20 years later.

You can probably tell by now that I'm not one of the majority who finds song lyrics important. The human voice is just another instrument to my puny linguistic brain. Oh, but such a vital and important instrument.

So, most of the sounds I push out are just that: sounds. Hopefully some of you may find they contain some rhythmic, harmonic and sonic interest. But if you're after meaningful lyrics, then I'm so sorry, there's nothing for you here.

Nepalese mother and Finnish father. Check out Philip Larkin. That is all.