AT LAST!

At last.

I've done my waiting - TEN YEARS OF IT - in the THIRD PERSON! and now, I'm finally getting a shot at talking to you people directly without any of that EDITING AUTHORIAL OVERLORDING BUSINESS that Hannah's been on about for the last decade of my bleeding life. I mean -- FINA-FUCKING-LY!!!! 

So hello darlings... It's me, Sirius Black.

Siriusly.

No. Really. Seriously. 

I've been given ~permission~ to share with you some of my thoughts about all this bloody BRILLIANT MUSIC that I've been TRYING DESPERATELY to saturate you lot with through every chance I get by INSISTING that she include lyrics and references to my record player every time it's possible to do so. 

For the record? (yes that's a music pun, that'll be happening with frequency all over the place so get used to it) I sing a whole lot more than she even gives me credit for. And not always real songs either, like honestly look through any of the dialogue that she's written and it's likely at least half of it was actually SUNG, not SAID.

Soooooooooooo! 

I'm really fucking exciting to give you a bit of an education on music from my perspective and tell you what stuff is good and why and what's brilliant about it and where it fit into this whole story and WHY IT FIT INTO THE STORY and what it is about MUSIC that makes me soo so soo sooooo fucking happy. 

OKAY so before we get too far into this let me just say one thing that absolutely has to be said - it's terribly important and you're going to absolutely love it:

I can totally see your comments and I will be responding to them so if you have a question for me, Sirius Black, you can ask it and I'll answer it - even if it's about like something not even related to whatever I'm talking about at the moment. Like right now, you wondering if I like the taste of plums? You can ask that. Wanna know what color underpants I'm wearing? (Hannah says I can't answer that but I totally will just say that it rhymes with MURPLE). Ask away. I'll answer. Crossmyheart. 

And ooooonce you cross your heart yoooou ain't ever supposed to liiiiiie.... well life ain't nothin' but a cold hard ride, I ain't leavin' 'til I'm satisfied... I cross my heart, yeah, I cross my heart - I cross my heart, pretty darlin', over youuuu...  (Juicy Bruce Springsteen sang that in 1992 - I found this out just recently, of course.)

SO BASICALLY WHAT I AM PLANNING TO DO HERE is write you a whole lot of great stuff - memories and whatever - about some of the best songs that we've decided to include on The Full Shebang. Because there's a LOT OF GREAT STUFF ON THERE, huh? And it all goes with something and means something to me -- to US. 

So like MUSIC, am I right? MUSIC is FANTASTIC. Music is just two letters away from being MAGIC and that cannot be a coincidence. Kind of like REMUS is the same as SEXIEST WEREWOLF ON THE PLANET EARTH, which is maybe a few more than two letters different, but it's literally the same thing anyway and that's what I'm getting at when i say MUSIC is like MAGIC. It doesn't matter how many letters different they are it just matters that they are the SAME FUCKING THING.

Get it?

So why is music magic? Because!!!! BECAUSE!!!! 

If you're like me, then you low-key have music on in your head all the time. Like you sort of go through life picturing there being a score like in a movie. You know how like in a film it's not even loud, it's just this like tinkly background stuff that sort of sets the mood a little and if it was gone everything would feel really awkward but you don't particularly know what the music IS that's playing? That's what my brain is like ALL OF THE TIME.

Like sometimes when stuff happens that's dramatic as fuck I'll be like DUN DUN DUNNNN and everyone thinks I'm being really funny right? But that's what my brain just did FOR REAL okay? I'm just putting words to it. And like when I'm in a battle and I'm like jamming to the Bee Gee's - stayin' alive, stayin' alive, ah ah ah ah stayin' aliiiii-iiiii-iiii-iiiiiive - like where is the fucking lie???? THAT IS THE GOAL IS IT NOT? So why wouldn't it be the THEME SONG? Obviously! I swear.

I CANNOT BE THE ONLY ONE THAT DOES THIS IN MY HEAD.

So if it was up to me, if the Marauders was being written by ME, then you'd get to know all the great songs that she DOESN'T BOTHER INCLUDING and you'd see how incredibly relevant they really are. 

Wait, what was I getting at through all this? Let me scroll back up and reread what I said. I think I might've gone off track a wee bit somewhere. 

OH YEAH THAT'S RIGHT:

So what I want to do is show you a bunch of great stuff about the memories I have that connect to some of the songs on the playlist, and maybe give you guys some food for thought as you reread the books Hannah's written about me and my friends but with a more MUSICAL POINT OF VIEW because MUSIC was ALWAYS an integral part of us Marauder and the things that we got up to. Me and James especially. And also me and Remus and -- yes sometimes, even Peter, but usually not Peter. 

James and me for example, we always, always had fun with music. You know at one point we started a band, me and him? We were called the BROOMSTICK BOYS and we were going to woo the masses. James got soft on me though and decided to go be like a fucking auror or quidditch trainer or husband or FATHER or whatever the hell and I was left in the dust - one half of a duo that never quite recorded their first record... but trust me, we were brilliant and we definitely would've been bigger than the Beatles if we'd made it.

James had a great voice you know. 

Also he could yodel. He doesn't know I know that. (Shhhh.)

One time - I'll never forget it- we were late coming off the pitch after a quidditch game and he was in the shower and I was fucking around with he broomstick servicing kit (DIRTY GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTERS ALL  OF YOU!!!!) and I'm sitting on one of the benches in the locker room and I hear him in there YODELING AWAY. So I sat there laughing my ass off and he just kept at it and damned if I didn't wish I had a recorder like the muggles use to tape noise. It would've been brilliant. I thought about using this cool spell that sort of does the same thing but I didn't have anywhere to store the sound - you sort of have to put it in a jar like memories do for a penseive if you can picture that I guess - and there wasn't a single damned jar in the whole locker room that I could stick that noise into. So, sadly, the yodeling lives on only in my memory. 

For the record though whenever James yodeled, because he did it a couple times that I actually saw, not just in the shower - but when he yodeled his adam apple did this funny thing where it bobbled up and down really hard like a big fat yoyo and as stupid as it sounds that was some really hot shit. Like REALLY HOT. Like I would pester him to do it on Tuesdays and Bank Holidays and he'd tell me to fuck right the fuck off but if you ever get a Tuesday or a Bank Holiday with James Potter, you make that arsehole yodel and you'll be a damn happier person for it. Alright?

Do you solemnly swear you'll make Potter yodel if you're ever given the chance?

Good.

So anyway, that's the type stuff I want to tell you about, but next time I'll have an actual song or a band or something that I'll be talking about, not just James Potter's yodeling.

Oh wait wait I know what I wanted to tie the yodeling into - before I wrap this up. Mine and James's song. So it's a little cheating because I plan to talk  a LOT about Queen with you soon (because QUEEN is VERY important musical knowledge that you need to know about and I would be a damn heathen if I didn't tell you all about them)... but mine and James's song is by Queen and it needs to be talked about RIGHT NOW.

OK so get "You're My Best Friend" by Queen playing right now. I'll wait.

Waiting.

Waiting...

No seriously, put it on right now, I'm not even joking.

Here - Hannah showed me this BRILLIANT thing called YOUTUBE on the computy where I can show you the actual songs if I want to:  

I'll wait all day for you to actually haul your ass to wherever your headphones are and put this thing on, alright? Seriously. I'm not telling you a damn thing until you play it.

Okay there you go. Finally.

So this song? This song is me and James. 

It came out in 1975, on my ALL TIME FAVORITE ALBUM ... A Night at the Opera by Queen. It was written by John Deacon, who plays bass, and they played it at the concert I went to in 1979 with the lads and Lilith. When they played it, I grabbed James and serenaded the fuck out of him because everyone should know who their best friends are and those best friends need to know how bloody special they are... so James really earned hearing this song come from my heart right into his own ears and down to his heart and it just was a warm furry moment if you know what I mean. 

But the lyrics to this song... Seriously, listen to them. LOOK AT THEM...

Oh you're the best friend that I ever had, I've been with you such a long time, you're my sunshine, and I want you to know that my feelings are true, I really love you, you're my best friend... In rain or shine, you've stood by me... Whenever this world is cruel to me, I got you to help me forgive, you're making me live now... oh you're making me live... you're the first one when things turn out bad... You know I'll never be lonely, you're my only ... you're my best friend!

Me and James... well fuck, I loved him more than anyone else on the planet. Remus can't even hate me for it because even Remus knew that all along. James and me we were SOULMATES. We were BROTHERS. I would have laid my life down at a moment's notice if he only asked me to. Not that he would have ever asked. That was the funny thing about James. He never asked anyone for a damn thing, he was always giving everything away.

Fuck I miss him.

 A lot.

Alright no I told myself I wouldn't get into the dark stuff in here and I won't but I just hope maybe seeing the Best Friend song between me and James and knowing about our band and everything helped you see another little bitty part of me and him and maybe you'll appreciate us even more next time you're reading and you see me going on about what a great arsehole James Potter is and maybe you'll think ah shut the fuck up Sirius because you know I don't really mean it when I call James an arsehole because way down at the very, very bottom of everything there is, James Potter is absolutely everything to me.

Like remember when I was going on up there about Remus and Sexy Werewolves and Music being Magic and all that prattling on I've done? Well James Potter is the same thing as life - at least to me - because he saved me about a hundred times, like a Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Oh shit that's another song I need to add to the Full Shebang that I forgot to say earlier. Because that song is so James. It's James on the inside. It's by Simon and Garfunkel and it came out in 1970 on an album by the same name and it's BEAUTIFUL and it's SO FUCKING JAMES...

I remember that same night when we went to see Queen, we were back in Paris and me and Lilith were out on the balcony of the apartment that she and Prongs were staying at that month and me and Lily were trying to do her love magic stuff and it didn't work out so hot - she was supposed to be doing Remus (kinky) but she ended up doing James (double kinky) and she was real emotional because first off she had to interrupt it and second he'd told her not to do it, but  she did it sort of by accident and sort of by getting distracted by him (and who could blame a girl for getting distracted by JAMES, though)... but she said this thing about how deep he was and stuff and I told her, I said "Evans, there's a reason that he gets me."

I think this song sort of explains that about him.

He would've said all the words of it to me any time. 

Anyways, take a listen to it. I'll cry like a fucking infant if I listen to it right now, though so you can do that  as your "homework assignment": 

I'll write you lot more about music later, but for now stay cool.

Yours, Sirius Black.