Music to die for.

Apparently the world was due to end last Saturday (21.5.11) and as I waited for the inevitable, it got me thinking if I would be ascending to heaven accompanied by a heavenly choir or something else.  Would a golden light shine down on me and my feet gently lift off the ground as the voices of a million angels serenade me on my journey to heaven?

I imagined St Peter meeting me at the heavenly gates and as they swung open saying to me in a mellow drawl, heavy with years of marijuana and tequila ‘Hey man, welcome, head over to the blues cloud tonight, we’ve got Hendrix on harp’.  Then me trotting off happily as I hear Pink Floyd start up a gig that I want to watch and reading a program for the musical entertainment on offer. 

Or would it be that all the fundamentalist Christians were right and the ‘good' rock music would be in hell and I’d be missing out on some of the best afterlife jam sessions imaginable?  Would I have to make a quick decision and kick a kitten or pinch a small child as I started to ascend to heaven, so instead I could go where all the fun was being had?

I prefer to think it’s more likely that there would be a special circle of hell reserved for all the music that has tainted our collective consciousness over the years and all the twee, manufactured, soulless music is being played on an endless loop for all the truly evil amongst us.  I mean honestly, I know it has been said in the past that hell is where they‘d end up, but can you really not imagine Iron Maiden in heaven playing another encore and rocking out on the metal cloud?  Thousands of screaming fans, tiny angel wing nubs just starting to grow, bouncing along in wild abandon and not one bottle of urine flying over the audience to soak the unwary below.  Sounds great huh?

Of course it couldn’t be party time all the time in heaven.  Why do you think St Peter sounded so wasted?  He didn’t know when to stop and take a breather.  I think after a few energetic days in Heaven getting acclimatised, taking in the odd ‘Settling into the afterlife’ seminar between gigs and joining in with the party, I’d ease off a bit and head over to the jazz bar.  I’d open the door and clouds of smoke would waft out along with the plaintive notes of Miles Davis.  As I step into the bar I’d be handed a whiskey and shown to my table and then I’d close my eyes and soak up the music as I recuperate from my initiation into the limitless rounds of the heavenly gig circuit.  I’d have an after-lifetime to enjoy it all, I’d have to learn to pace myself.

So as I waited for judgement day I compiled my playlist and chose what tracks I would want as I floated up to heaven and then I worked out my dream concert set so I could start my first day in the Heavenly paradise in style.  Needless to say the first song I would choose as I drifted on up would be a cliché, but boy would it be apt, I mean who could resist Led Zeppelin playing ‘Stairway to Heaven’?