11 June 1989: This Heat Has Got Right Out of Hand

1. Jason Donovan: Sealed with a Kiss
2. Cliff Richard: The Best of Me
3. Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler: Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)
4. Sinitta: Right Back Where We Started From
5. Madonna: Express Yourself
6. Guns 'N Roses: Sweet Child o' Mine [remix]
7. Natalie Cole: Miss You Like Crazy
8. Cyndi Lauper: I Drove All Night
9. Donna Summer: I Don't Wanna Get Hurt
10. Neneh Cherry: Manchild
11. The Beautiful South: Song for Whoever
12. D Mob featuring LRS: It Is Time to Get Funky
13. Lynne Hamilton: On the Inside
14. Gerry Marsden, Paul McCartney, Holly Johnson & The Christians: Ferry Cross the Mersey
15. Transvision Vamp: The Only One
16. Double Trouble & The Rebel MC: Just Keep Rockin'
17. Fuzzbox: Pink Sunshine
18. Kylie Minogue: Hand on Your Heart
19. Tone Loc: Funky Cold Medina
20. Bananarama: Cruel Summer '89
21. London Boys: Requiem
22. Donna Allen: Joy and Pain
23. Bobby Brown: Every Little Step
24. Paula Abdul: Forever Your Girl
25. Edelweiss: Bring Me Edelweiss
26. Cappella: Helyom Halib
27. Sam Brown: Can I Get a Witness?
28. R.E.M.: Orange Crush
29. Tom Petty: I Won't Back Down
30. Clannad featuring Bono: In a Lifetime
31. The Bangles: Be with You
32. Roxette: The Look
33. Placido Domingo & Jennifer Rush: Til I Loved You
34. Karyn White: Superwoman
35. Malcolm McLaren & The Bootzilla Orchestra: Waltz Darling
36. Vixen: Love Made Me
37. New Model Army: Green and Grey
38. The Bangles: Eternal Flame
39. Living in a Box: Gatecrashing
40. Gladys Knight: Licence to Kill

~~~~~

More perceptive, trainspotterly followers of this blog will note that this is the second Top 40 go round for Sweet Child o' Mine. Nowadays something of a classic from a fondly remembered group, it's easy to forget that Guns 'N Roses were slow to grab the public's attention. Appetite for Destruction, their breakthrough, is now recognized as a landmark of sleazy, dirtbag hard rock but it spread more through word of mouth than immediate critical acclaim, especially in Britain. The original Sweet Child was enjoying a brief run on the hit parade at the time we were just getting settled in the UK and its follow-up, Welcome to the Jungle, fared little better. Then, suddenly, Paradise City was released and they had a smash on their hands (this despite some terse reviews: I can distinctly recall Chris Heath's sniveling write-up in Smash Hits in which he dismissed the group as the sorts who claim to be tough by staying out all night and drinking lots of beer). There was no rational reason why the third single would outperform its predecessors but people had clearly seen something by this point and GNR had arrived.

There was room, therefore, for a second kick at the can for their best song, though it wasn't quite the same. While the original clocks in at about five minutes, the rerelease cut close to ninety seconds of material. (It was dubbed a remix but it was in fact an edit) Slash's (unnecessary) solo following the first run through of the chorus is excised completely while some of his second, more prolonged riffing is, well, slashed - and that, in effect, is the difference and it's all the better for it. Purists will doubtless shudder at the reduced axe work but there is still ample opportunity to appreciate Slash at the top of his game. In the end, the original is great but the condensing here makes it that much better. (A pity no one got round to doing similar cup up work on the nine minute November Rain)

Of course re-do's were nothing new at the time, although the vast majority of which fall into the it-pales-in-comparison-to-the-original camp. We've already seen - though I didn't bother to write about - inferior remixes of classic pop such as Petula Clark's Downtown '88 and Chaka Khan's I'm Every Woman '89 but perhaps the most grievous example is Bananarama's lifeless, tepid Cruel Summer '89. Originally a blistering yet sinister synth-pop/new wave number, it beautifully captures everyone's favourite season in all its tedious, oppressive glory, as anyone who ever experienced summer teenage heartbreak or wasted yet another gorgeous day watching re-runs and game shows over the holidays can identify with. Cruel Summer ought to have soundtracked the punishing heatwave of '89 but this new version ended up undermining it if anything. The beat was too jolly and bouncy while the vocals lack its predecessor's downcast tone. There's a kind of smarmy pointlessness to the whole endeavour which is only boosted by the dreadful mash up video. Cheap.

"There will be no summer uniforms".

There had been whispers for a while that the higher-up's at Mayflower were going to acquiesce to some sort of alteration in the dress code but here was the stern Mr. Shaw to well and truly quash them. I was downcast but not particularly surprised. These people were so damn uptight about the bloody uniforms that it was amazing the subject was even brought up in the weekly assembly. I was resigned to another month or so of being draped in my big black heavy blazer.

"There's going to be a summer uniform".

It was soon after that assembly - as early as the very next morning, though I could be off by a day or two - that my dad informed me of what was really going on. Britain's summer heatwave was showing no signs of relenting and we were cooking in our black suits. No formal announcement was made - indeed, they had just gone out of their way to tell us that we weren't going to be changing uniforms - but everyone showed up for school the following Monday without blazers, jumpers and ties. The summer uniform experiment was on.

(Quite why old Shaw bothered to tell us there wouldn't be a summer uniform before immediately going back on it has always puzzled me. At the time I figured he was simply being emphatic so we didn't somehow misinterpret "summer uniform" to mean "wear whatever the fuck you want" but now I wonder if he was playing mind games on us. Talk was so rampant about some kind of reduced dress code that the Mayflower authorities may have wanted to take control of the situation by immediately dashing our hopes. Then again, perhaps this was just Shaw being Shaw: an old codger of an educator who believed he had more authority than he did, telling students about an issue he had no actual say in)

The summer uniforms were popular but not without problems. We had yet another assembly soon after in which Mr. Lawrence berated students who were apparently ignoring the rules. Four boys were invited on the stage so he could make an example of them. My mate Richard was among them. I hadn't thought anything of the stitched labels on the breast pockets of his white shirt but Lawrence seemed to think otherwise. Lawrence ripped into Richard and his parents while my friend stood stone-faced. I'm pretty sure the experience traumatised me far more than him. It's an anecdote that I'm sure doesn't read especially 

The following weekend we went up to Cambridge and met up with fellow exchangees John and Debby and Theo and Darlene for the two-in-one of Mum's birthday and Father's Day. The heat was still oppressive and perhaps this was why everyone chose to try some punting. This was no my proudest moment: Dad and John did well pushing our narrow boat down the canal and even my sister made a game attempt but I gave up about swiftly enough that our punt didn't even budge an inch. Photos of the experience capture me in all my lazy, good-for-nothing shame: posing next to John with a wry grin as my dad was giving it his all, looking utterly useless as dad relaxed while John tried his hand at the punt, kicking back as Julie gave it a go. Unmotivated, uncaring teenage Paul begins here. Either that or it was the heat.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Back to Life
older Paul's retro pick: Back to Life