Pinch, punch – first of the month!
I had a wee idea yesterday to do a sort of Advent Calendar this month (I know, I know – it’s not Grinchy but it’s my blog and I’m allowed to break the rules!) but instead of chocolate, which I wish I could give you all, to share some of the music I’ve stumbled across in 2011 and hopefully bring you something that is new to you.
When I was writing about my Dad, I mentioned that he always encouraged me to have a broad taste in music. I have tried to stick to that through my life, making the effort to listen to something fresh and new to me when ever I could and never dismissing something out of hand just because it was pop or mainstream, jazz or classical. It always got (and still gets) my hackles up when I met someone, usually an older adult who would say something like “They don’t make music like they used to” and then extol the virtues of the likes of Frank Sinatra or The Beatles. Let me say that I have nothing against Frank – I enjoy some of his output, even if he was a bit of a twat. As for the Beatles – I dislike them intensely. “But how can you say that?” people ask me and seem to be personally and mortally wounded in the way that they would never be if I said I don’t like any other band or singer. Well, as you all know, I was born in the late 60s so I missed out on all of the Merseybeat music. I don’t think it’s an accident that the kind of music I like from that era veers more towards the likes of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, although I can state quite categorically that they weren’t my parents’ favourites. Allow me to digress a wee minute – again it has always mystified me that, as people who grew up in the 50s and 60s that my parents’ music collections were so sparse. I remember going through their “record collections”, which amounted to maybe a dozen singles and not many more albums and being surprised that they had so little – maybe 2 Beatles, one Mamas and the Papas, their “song” (“You Were Always On My Mind” by Elvis Presley, which in a sad way was sort of apt for them) and a few novelty records. Their album collection tended to consist of really random things like collections of military band music, boxed sets of back catalogues from Readers Digest of country music and again really strange things like “A Tijuana Christmas”! They had nothing from the early 1970s, even though they had at one point somewhat uncharacteristically run a disco for local teenagers on a Sunday night in the local tenants’ association hall – it was called the PADA club (for Parkhall And District Association) and each week for about a year or so I remember going along with them (I was about 5 or 6) and learning to dance “the Bump”. It was really popular and I recall how my Dad had made flashing disco lights (he offered to make me some when I was a teenager but I was too cool sadly for 3 bulbs in a foil-covered box by then). I have no idea what happened to all the records they had – I guess they had to leave them with the association but they didn’t seem to buy any of Bowie or T-Rex for themselves.
Anyway, back to the bloody Beatles. I did try to listen to them but they were just another group to me and were old hat when I was growing up so nobody I know really listened to them. In 1985, one of my then boyfriends lent me a book by Pete Best who had been the original drummer. Maybe looking back on it, it was slanted and maybe he was disgruntled but it influenced me enough then and still does to see them all as not very nice people, especially John Lennon and Paul McCartney. I do think that their individual output after the band broke up was nothing special and I don’t think any of them, particularly Lennon, deserve to be lionised in the way that they are.
It brings me back to what I was saying about how I feel that some people get “stuck” with the music that affected them most when they were growing up. I‘ll be the first to put my hand up and admit that, despite my fondness for them now, I wasn’t aware of the Clash and disliked the Sex Pistols and “punk”. My liking of Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet embarrasses me now although I still listen to Adam Ant, especially his new stuff. I always hearken back to a quote from the movie “The Breakfast Club” where Ally’s Sheedy’s character Alison says, “When you grow up, your heart dies.” – I think that can also mean that some people think that when you “grow up” your taste in music dies and you have to listen to Susan Boyle, The Travelling Wilburys and Radio 2 or Smooth Radio. I have vowed to myself that if I ever stop listening to new music, then it’s Soylent Green time for me. I do pride myself that I currently have 787 songs on my iPod ranging from Lady Gaga to Dusty Springfield and the Wu Tang Clan to Steve Earle.
So I’d like if I may to share from now up to Ickmas some new tunes that I like. I hope that you will indulge me because it means that I am committing to blog EVERY DAY for the next 24, including weekends. So without any further ado, here is today’s tune.
I’m going with some new stuff from an old favourite. Kate Bush (see, the titles of these blogs have meaning!) has a new album out “50 Words For Snow” and I have been listening to it on Spotify and from that here is
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