Music can dredge up long – and perhaps best – forgotten feelings in the oddest way.
By chance I came across an old song that I haven’t heard for – well, a long time. I was 13 when Helen Shapiro sang “You don’t know”. She was 14 and, as soon as I heard it, I knew I was in love. It didn’t work out between us, but it did teach me something: the embarrassingly large succession of young ladies that my hormones made me fall in love with were all singers – yes, my wife is a singer.
So when I heard this song, an ancient feeling stirred within; fortunately, I’m not as keen on the hairstyle as I used to be.
Glenn Gould was obsessed with Petula Clark, something I used not to understood; he tried to rationalise it with typical Gouldian cerebral over-indulgence. Now I know the real reason.
I listened, but didn’t recognize the song. Must be Brit. Anyway, the arrangement threw me for a loop; was that a trombone or baritone doing the mess in the bridge section?????
Yes, British. My guess is trombone.
Ah – memories of “Top of the Pops” and “Ready, Steady, Go”. Remember Cilla Black’s hairstyle and Sandy Shaw’s bare feet?
Absolutely British! She was just a few short years younger than me – but in the clip it was the clothes, the physical stance of people, the ‘way things were’ – – and I lived that! I could almost recognise myself. How different today.