In hospital, the pain has made Dad feel a bit vulnerable. His mind doesn't have it's usual defences. A fellow meditator said that sometimes you can't meditate well when you're in pain, because it's like standing when your legs are broken.

'You need some noise cancelling headphones' I say. 'Focus on the music instead of letting your mind go to dark places'. For the record, we shouldn't be ignoring the dark places, and should be prepared to sit with them. However, there's times where it doesn't help to go into the same dark place over and over. Sometimes it's best to just nod your head at it and move on. I'm suprised Dad doesn't already have good noise cancelling headphones.

^{*Image by me and Midjourney. It's suprising how this actually looks similiar to my folks living room.}

He immediately gets Mum to pick a pair up on the way home and bring them to him in the morning, but as chance would have it, he was so ill the next morning he couldn't stop vomiting. Poor Mum was really worried. Yet by the next morning, he was home, happy with his new purchase. Funny how fast things can change.

At home, he sent me a typical text with capital letters. It's almost telegram-stylie. It feels like he is shouting, but it's probably more enthusiasm.

I'M HOME WITH THE HEADPHONES ALL VERY GOOD THANKYOU

Before long, the emails start coming. Texting is a little beyond him. He very quickly enters a music rabbit hole. My old man loves his music, and when he's really into a song he'll tell me all about it and force me to listen to it. He's done this my whole life. He gets a bit annoyed if I don't listen.

First is Pink Floyd. He always loved Dark Side of the Moon, and always tests any new audio equipment on this album. But he's been listening to some other albums lately as well he is really enjoying. He loved this Youtube version of 'Mother' with Roger Waters. Especially when he he sings 'can we trust the government' and looks at the camera and mouths 'no fucking way'.

Next is the Rolling Stones. Both Dad and I agree that most of the stuff of recent years was no where as good as their old stuff. But this album, he argues, is worth listening to a couple of times. It's more polished, he says, and there's a couple of bluesy tracks. We agree we think they do those old bluesy tracks well, like Sister Morphine. It's a full circle kinda of song, as they all are saying - it's a Muddy Waters cover, and they started with Muddy Waters.

The next one weirded me out a little because it's Post Malone. What on earth is Dad doing sending me this one? But it's a cover of a Johnny Cash song. Apparently Malone likes country music.

'So you're loving your noise cancelling headphones then?'

'Oh yeah', he says. 'They're great.'

I can picture him in bed listening to tunes in the middle of the night instead of letting his head go to those dark places. It makes me very happy.

*This post was written for @ablaze for #threetunetuesday. I haven't done one in ages as I've just been too busy and every time I think I have a few tunes I'd like to share I forget them before I put pen to paper!