- Sonia: You'll Never Stop Me from Loving You
- London Boys: London Nights
- Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler: Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)
- Bobby Brown: On Our Own
- Bette Midler: Wind Beneath My Wings
- Rufus & Chaka Khan: Ain't Nobody '89
- Pet Shop Boys: It's Alright
- The Beautiful South: Song for Whoever
- Gloria Estefan: Don't Wanna Lose You
- Gladys Knight: Licence to Kill
- Karyn White: Superwoman
- A Guy Called Gerald: Voodoo Ray
- Michael Jackson: Liberian Girl
- Prince: Batdance
- Kirsty MacColl: Days
- Monie Love: Grandpa's Party
- Waterfront: Cry
- De La Soul: Say No Go
- Guns 'N Roses: Patience
- Simply Red: A New Flame
- Queen: Breakthru
- Double Trouble & The Rebel MC: Just Keep Rockin'
- Danny Wilson: The Second Summer of Love
- Cyndi Lauper: I Drove All Night
- LA Mix featuring Jazzi P: Get Loose
- M: Pop Muzik '89
- Blow Monkeys featuring Sylvia Tella: Choice
- Sinitta: Right Back Where We Started From
- Norman Cook: Blame It on the Bassline / Won't Talk About It
- Jason Donovan: Sealed with a Kiss
- Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers: Swing the Mood
- The Cult: Edie (Ciao Baby)
- Donna Allen: Joy and Pain
- U2: All I Want Is You
- D Mob featuring LRS: It Is Time to Get Funky
- Raze presents Doug Lazy: Let It Roll
- Madonna: Express Yourself
- The Bangles: Be with You
- Earth Kitt & Bronski Beat: Cha Cha Heels
- Guns 'N Roses: Sweet Child o' Mine [remix]
~~~~~
"Gentlemen, you've recorded your first number one."
I think I'm actually quoting Nigel, the manager of Homer Simpson's barbershop quartet The Be Sharps but the above is typically attributed to George Martin, as soon as The Beatles had finished recording Please Please Me. The patrician, debonair Martin had been trained in classical music but his ear was acute enough to know a pop smash when he heard one. But who else has managed such prescience? Did Bjorn and Benny know they had struck gold as soon as Waterloo was in the can? Did the fifteen-year-old Kate Bush know she was on to something extraordinary when she'd just written Wuthering Heights? Were Suggs and co. aware that House of Fun had that je ne sais quoi about it that My Girl and Baggy Trousers and It Must Be Love were so clearly lacking?
As a fan, I often used to play a similar could-this-hit-the-top guessing game. Slushy love songs from films always seemed to hit the top, so those were easy to predict (the only thing surprising about Bryan Adams Everything I Do was that it stayed at the top for so damn long, not that it got there to begin with). Big artists who were returning from a not too brief yet not too lengthy hiatus were also safe picks to get to the summit of the chart. But what about numbers that just have something? Songs with a spark that will just get everyone interested even if there's no ulterior motive pushing it up.
We've now come upon the one time during our year in England in which I encountered a single and knew immediately it would hit the top. There had been obvious number ones previously - Cliff Richard's Mistletoe and Wine, much to my shagrin, and Madonna's Like a Prayer, which I was largely indifferent towards - but none by a no name act, with a lousy video and fronted by a nondescript character.
Of course, the above could apply to this week's new number one, Sonia's You'll Never Stop Me from Loving You. I'd been a fan of Kylie Minogue and Bananarama and Rick Astley and I was even able to put up with Jason Donovan but this latest addition to the Stock Aitken Waterman stable felt like they'd finally overreached themselves. Tom Ewing, on his superlative Popular site, observes that Sonia was an attempt at The X Factor or Pop Idol before such shows existed. Rather than plucking an already established act (Bananarama, Donna Summer) or grooming an up and coming figure (Astley) or just snagging Aussie soap stars, this was SAW's attempt at making a start out of one of their fans. Once, we all wanted to look like pop stars but now they all look like us. Cheers, Sonia.
No, the number one I saw coming was just a humble new entry at this point. There's nothing especially great about Swing the Mood by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers but the moment I first heard it on that week's Top of the Pops I knew it would quickly be supplanting Sonia's dreadful tedium (thinking about it now, I have to wonder if my opposition to the incumbent left me more well-disposed towards its eventual usurper than I would normally have been). A megamix of fifties rock 'n' roll hits, it was intended to be a merging of old and new, of Elvis and Little Richard meeting DJ samples and effects - and it worked at the time because I was convinced the sources were authentic. Listening to it now, I can't believe I was so duped; even the opening bars of Glenn Miller's In the Mood are treated to gauche synthesing and the voices of The Everly Brothers and Bill Haley are about as convincing as the Rod Stewart impersonator I once saw. Nevertheless, I was sufficiently charmed by it and had an inkling that I wasn't alone. I think I had become attuned to what suckers the British were - and still are - for a novelty hit and that it seemed to find a balance between being fresh and appealing on a nostalgic level.
School was wrapping up by now but I was disappointed that it was ending on the sour note of an apparent rift with my good friends Neil, Richard and Sean. I'd been frozen out of the group for at least a week and I'd already angrily confronted them on it before growing resigned to the situation. Maybe they were getting used to the next year ahead without me around, I reasoned, and maybe they were right.
But it wasn't as if everyone was glad to see the back of me. One of my final tasks as a Mayflower student was to meet with all my teachers, ask them to sign a form I'd been given and, thereby, allow me to get out. It seemed a pointless task ("What are they going to do, force you to stay here if you don't bother?", one of my friends remarked) but one which I nonetheless complied. I, thus, spent the bulk of my final day's morning and afternoon playtimes, as well as much of the lunch hour, seeking out my teachers. They were all kind and graciously bid me farewell. Mr. McLean, the general science instructor who I was overly fond of, was surprisingly genial and even seemed apologetic that the British curriculum was far behind Canada's. I assured him this was far from the case.
For our final form room period, Miss Mitchell asked me to come up to the front of the classroom. She told everyone that this was my last day and that I'd be heading back to Canada soon. She then invited Neil, my closest friend but with whom I'd hardly spoken over the past week, up to join me. He presented me with a giant card signed by everyone in the class and a very nice gold pen. He then confessed that they'd been avoiding me in order to seek out donations to cover the cost of my goodbye gift. Everyone had been in on it: the likes of Grant, Daniel, Steve and the other Neil had been set up to distract me while the others were getting 50p out of as many Mayflower first years as possible. I was touched, though still feeling like a massive chump for falling for their ruse. But I was just happy to have my mates back for the little time I had left.
The end of school also meant the start of saying our goodbyes. As I stood in my dad's maths classroom at the end of my last day I bumped into Fraser, the lad who befriended me on my first nervous, uneasy day at Mayflower. Over the year, I saw him from time to time but we were clearly moving in different circles, a 1L1 lad could only have limited contact with a boy from 1L2. The night of my last day at Mayflower we drove up to Thorpe-le-Soken for a final dinner with our distant relatives. We first visited them soon after we arrived the previous August but, aside from attending a birthday party at their place on Guy Fawkes night, we'd had scant contact with them ever since. I'd previously written about meeting Chris and feeling like I had a new friend, albeit as it turned out one I almost never saw. I was now no longer under any such delusions. I was just content to play some records and mess about with my fourth cousin twice removed - or whatever we might be. Fraser and Chris, they'd once been so vital to my days as a newcomer to England but now I was saying goodbye to them. I haven't seen them since.
The following day my mum and I spent the day at Neil's place in Billericay. Our mums had become good friends over the past few months and this was a welcome respite from the farewells. This was just a nice day at my best friend's place. We listened to music, kicked around a football in their spacious backyard, took a walk around nearby Norsey Wood and enjoyed a lovely lunch prepared by Neil's mum Jessie. A nice day surrounded by all kinds of change.
Despite saying goodbye to schoolmates and relatives I still didn't feel like our time in the UK was rapidly dwindling. Part of this could be down to being just twelve-years-old and still in that childhood world of days that feel like weeks and weeks that feel like months - we still had loads of time left - but maybe it was also due to having to embark on one final trip.
That Saturday, we packed and caught a taxi. The cab ride wasn't too long but the destination was unfamiliar to me. We then got on a bus which probably took us to the town of Ramsgate on the coast of Kent. Finally, we boarded a ferry for Ostend, Belgium. And so began our ten day coach tour of Europe.
~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: London Nights
older Paul's retro pick: It's Alright
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