12 February 1989: I Will Decide When I Go or I Don't Go

1. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
2. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
3. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
4. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
5. Holly Johnson: Love Train
6. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
7. Roy Orbison: You Got It
8. Morrissey: The Last of the Famous International Playboys
9. Yazz: Fine Time
10. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
11. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
12. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
13. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
14. Simply Red: It's Only Love
15. Sheena Easton: The Lover in Me
16. Samantha Fox: I Only Wanna Be with You
17. Sam Brown: Stop
18. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
19. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
20. Def Leppard: Rocket
21. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
22. Then Jerico: Big Area
23. Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
24. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
25. Adeva: Respect
26. Erasure: Crackers International
27. Will to Power: Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird
28. Neneh Cherry: Buffalo Stance
29. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
30. Brother Beyond: Be My Twin
31. Raze: Break 4 Love
32. The Style Council: Promised Land
33. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
34. Debbie Gibson: Lost in Your Eyes
35. Milli Vanilli: Baby Don't Forget My Number
36. Boy Meets Girl: Waiting for a Star to Fall
37. Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians: What I Am
38. Pop Will Eat Itself: Can U Dig It?
39. Inner City: Good Life
40. Tone Loc: Wild Thing / Loc'ed After Dark

~~~~~

Oh, by the way, I saw Fahrenheit 9/11.

So, what did you think?

Well, it was all right. Pretty interesting but I didn't enjoy it all that much.

You're not supposed to enjoy it!

Huh. And there I was naively thinking that films are supposed to be enjoyable.

This week's highest new entry comes in all the way at number two and it illustrates the dangers of bringing serious issues into the realm of pop. Belfast Child has good intentions dealing as it does with The Troubles but it's a song that failed to leave much of an impression on the minds of kids at the time. The eighties - for all of its supposed narcissism - were something of a golden age for thoughtful pop that took on issues which, crucially, helped make young listeners aware of what was going on. Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears, Ghost Town by The Specials, Fast Car by Tracy Chapman: all appealed to kids while tackling some heavy subject matter. Where Simple Minds falter isn't simply by their attempts at clumsily fusing half-baked folk with tired stadium rock - though they're certainly guilty on that count too - but in failing to enlighten. My eleven-year-old self kind of knew what it was about due to the title and the bleak Ulster industrial docks in the video but I nevertheless came away as unconcerned about the problems in Northern Ireland as I was unentertained by the song itself.

A more enjoyable hit that dealt with important issues at the time was Hue & Cry's Looking for Linda. A big favourite at the time of my sister's (she bought the single at some point in February), it tells the tale of an encounter with an alcoholic woman on a Scottish train and the protagonist who attempts to reach out to her. The gentle, appealing melody and Pat Kane's gorgeous, jazzy voice make this an easy song to fall for - and one that could easily be misunderstood, as I can attest. I knew it wasn't just a straight up love song - I figured it was about a neglected, battered housewife who's trying to escape her nasty, controlling husband - but the alcoholism and suicide attempt ("I will decide when I go or I don't go", hence this week's entry's title) were lost on me. Still, there was something of a story to Looking for Linda, it seemed important and it was - still is, in fact - an immensely enjoyable tune.

I always think that there were four major news stories that I remember from my year in England. Two - the Ben Johnson doping scandal and the Lockerbie disaster - have already been covered; the remaining pair will be dealt with in due course. But of course these aren't the only news items I can recall, just the ones that really stick out. They bring back where I was when I heard about them (even if I tend to dislike those "where were you when..." discussions, as the great Christopher Hitchens said about Princess Diana's death: "Where was I when I heard the ghastly news? Who cares.") and are the ones that immediately come to mind - even if one wasn't really all that significant at the time. As far as other headlines are concerned, Exxon Valdez was sad but I couldn't quite grasp just how catastrophic it was, Mrs Thatcher's Poll Tax experiment was decried by some pop stars I liked but was in its infancy and wasn't going to affect us prior to our return to Canada, the wrath of children falling down wells in the US was too absurd to be taken seriously - even if it was probably a forerunner to the freakshow coverage that dominated American news in the nineties - and the Clapham Junction disaster - I'm ashamed to say now - left me rather indifferent.

The second week of February brought a pair of memorable news stories which couldn't have been more different from one another. Returning from our brief trip to Ireland on the Sunday, we had Monday off and went on a day trip to Dedham in the pristine Constable country of northern Essex. Everyone lunched on gigantic jacket potatoes - fast becoming one of my favourite English pub dishes - and we all made a game attempt at not letting the rain spoil the fun. Back in Laindon, we switched on the telly and tuned into the Brit Awards. Nowadays the Brits are a slick, well-produced showcase of the UK's pop talent but they were anything but back in 1989. Smash Hits magazine had already heaped harsh criticism on the awards due to many of the questionable nominees - in the category of Best Male Solo Artist, the choice of Steve Winwood was met with a simple (?????????????????) - but this was merely the tip of the Titanic-felling iceberg. Hosts Mick Fleetwood and Samantha Fox were pitiful and they weren't helped by poor direction and planning. Performances were dull and the whole affair was rather thin on star power. The whole thing was so wretched that my sister and I couldn't even be bothered to unleash scathingly cruel jabs that we were typically more than happy to foist upon phony baloney awards shows. "What a Fiasco!" cried the next issue of Smash Hits.

The next day the papers must have been similarly shredding The Brits to pieces but there was already an even bigger story developing. I went to school that Tuesday happy that I didn't have to give out Valentine's cards to everyone in my class (as I would've been expected to do had I been back in Canada); in the UK, the most romantic day of the year was much more of an optional event and it didn't bother me in the least that I received precisely as many cards festooned with hearts and cupids as I gave. Meanwhile, Britain's literary elite began turning up for the memorial service for famed travel writer, novelist and noted Moleskine notebook enthusiast Bruce Chatwin. As Martin Amis tells it, however, most in attendance were already thinking about Salman Rushdie and the fatwa that Ayatollah Khomeini had just placed on him. Suddenly there were demonstrations all over the world and effigies of the writer were being torched. Bookshops were refusing to carry Rushdie's offending novel The Satanic Verses and the author quickly went into hiding.

It was a story that I found interesting - at least for a time - but one that I could only instinctively form an opinion on. I was too young too care one wit about the intricacies of freedom of speech (and I have to say my idealistic self hasn't changed much on that one: while I am fully aware of just how important free speech is, I wish we didn't have to constantly go on and on about it) but I knew that the Ayatollah was a scary looking guy and those mobs were out of control. Otherwise, it was something I was simply too young and too unaware to have much of an idea about. A pity there weren't any pop songs to enlighten me.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Love Train
older Paul's retro pick: The Last of the Famous International Playboys

5 February 1989: I Can't Help Quoting You Cause Everything That You Said Rings True

1. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
2. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
3. Roy Orbison: You Got It
4. Holly Johnson: Love Train
5. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
6. Morrissey: The Last of the Famous International Playboys
7. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
8. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
9. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
10. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drive Me Crazy
11. Yazz: Fine Time
12. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
13. Simply Red: It's Only Love
14. Then Jerico: Big Area
15. Sheena Easton: The Lover in Me
16. Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
17. Erasure: Crackers International
18. Adeva: Respect
19. Will to Power: Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird
20. Samantha Fox: I Only Wanna Be with You
21. Brother Beyond: Be My Twin
22. Milli Vanilli: Baby Don't Forget My Number
23. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
24. Neneh Cherry: Buffalo Stance
25. Mica Paris & Will Downing: Where Is the Love?
26. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
27. Boy Meets Girl: Waiting for a Star to Fall
28. Raze: Break 4 Love
29. Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock: Get on the Dance Floor
30. Inner City: Good Life
31. Def Leppard: Rocket
32. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
33. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
34. Luther Vandross: She Won't Talk to Me
35. Natalie Cole: I Live for Your Love
36. Debbie Gibson: Lost in Your Eyes
37. Sam Brown: Stop
38. Level 42: Tracie
39. Big Country: Peace in Our Time
40. Monie Love: I Can Do This

~~~~~

It may not have been the mid-sixties or the early seventies but the late eighties had its fair share of pop-rock giants. Of course I knew of the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, George Michael, Prince, Bruce Springsteen and U2, even if I had mixed feelings towards all of them. I was less aware, however, of major figures on the periphery. Of course growing up in heavy metal-crazed Calgary it was difficult to escape Bon Jovi and Def Leppard but their harder-edged, harder-living compatriots Guns N' Roses and Metallica were slower to break through. The American alternative scene was in its infancy and it would be a long time before I would hear The Pixies and Sonic Youth. Rap was clearly becoming a thing but I was largely indifferent to my initial exposure to titans Public Enemy (while I never managed to hear N.W.A. at all and am not sure I ever have). And I was still a year or two away from seeing schoolmates sporting t-shirts of Britain's indie heroes: The Cure, Depeche Mode, Morrissey.

Morrissey. Of all the acts mentioned above he would make by far the biggest impact on me. They say that if Elvis hadn't existed then we would have had to invent him; had Morrissey never been conceived, however, no one would ever think to create such a person. Seemingly deliberately negative, opposed to absolutely everything, luxuriating in misery, he nevertheless penned incisive and funny lyrics. Some singers I'd aspire to be like. Others, I'd envy the lives they were living, even if their music meant nothing to me. Morrissey, however, was someone I didn't want to meet, didn't dream about seeing live, didn't make me want to be a similarly judgmental vegetarian and didn't point the way forward to me discovering new horizons. His music did, however, manage to help me find my way through this world and woke me up to my issues. Maybe not someone to love but someone to be deeply grateful for.

So, it must have been exciting to see Morrissey flouncing around the Top of the Pops stage with most of his erstwhile bandmates from The Smiths as they mimed this week's highest new entry The Last of the Famous International Playboys then? Well, no. I was on my way to Ireland for half-term break and missed that week's TOTP, thereby ruining my prior claim to having never missed an episode of Britain's seminal music show. The grinding, devastating paean to gangsters was something that managed to pass me by completely at the time but when I finally heard it a few years later I was floored. A year on from his first two solo singles, the equally sublime Suedehead and Everyday Is Like Sunday, Morrissey was on a roll and used his latest release as an excuse to begin self-mythologizing, a task he hasn't shied away from in the quarter century since. Looking back at the thugs he worshiped, he's also looking ahead to a time when he'll be similarly immortalized. Always one for iconography, The Last of the Famous International Playboys marks the beginning of Morrissey himself as the icon. It's a mixed blessing for while the record itself is nothing short of remarkable, it wasn't something he could simply move on from and his music from here on in begins to take a noticeable step down from which he would never recover.

In much the same way we spent the previous half-term break visiting Scotland with Grandma Ella and Grandpa Bill, we had travel companions for our jaunt to Ireland. My aunt Cookie and cousin Meghan had arrived earlier in the week. Unfortunately, their luggage failed to turn up with them and my nine-year-old cousin was reduced to wearing some over-sized, none-too-flattering jogging suits which belonged to me. Their suitcases were eventually found but the contents of which failed to impress us. My mum had asked her sister-in-law to bring a few things that we were missing from home and she happily obliged with tiny, multi-coloured marshmallows and unsalted soda crackers. It was a disappointment at the time but now it seems kind of endearing that she managed to get everything we requested just a bit wrong.

I live in Korea where many people take laughably short holidays, which is what this trip to Ireland felt like, particularly considering that the bulk of both our first and last days were spent on trains and ferries. Luckily I had my trusty walkman and my ever growing collection of tapes to provide adequate entertainment for the boring train journey. (With the occasional lull courtesy of dead air on cassettes whose sides had uneven playing time; my dad had once told me that hitting the fast forward button would chew up precious battery power so I made a habit of patiently waiting as several minutes of empty, useless tape would spool to its end) The ferry from Holyhead to Dublin was where I discovered the wonders of a movie theatre on a ship but the Irish Sea's anger rather spoiled the otherwise hysterical A Fish Called Wanda.

Dublin looked very much as it did in the brilliant 1991 film The Commitments: hard, rough, a more depressed London. It did have a certain glamour among the grime and I found it half-thrilling, half-unsettling to wander down dark and empty, puddle-laden streets, past boarded up homes and decaying artifacts of industry. It didn't have that comfy, homey feel that we so enjoyed about Scotland and was a far cry from those orderly English cities and towns we'd been visiting but it had something. (Something that clearly needed more than just a couple days) 

The Irish capital's dark side - the dark side I saw, not some unseemly world of cock fights, pimps, hard drugs and petty crime - left an impression on me that tends to romanticize run down, decrepit districts that may have once thrived. Here in Korea, I enjoy wandering around horribly narrow streets lined with hardware stores, hair salons and repair shops that look like they haven't been a going concern since the seventies. It's a world that's dying as the Korean government plans to erect modern apartments and new towns. I'm probably waxing poetic about a world I never knew and never even existed. I probably sound like Morrissey.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Love Train
older Paul's retro pick: The Last of the Famous International Playboys

29 January 1989: Scarlet for Me, Scarlet for You

1. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
2. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
3. Roy Orbison: You Got It
4. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
5. Holly Johnson: Love Train
6. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
7. Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
8. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
9. Erasure: Crackers International
10. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
11. Will to Power: Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird
12. Neneh Cherry: Buffalo Stance
13. Then Jerico: Big Area
14. Brother Beyond: Be My Twin
15. Boy Meets Girl: Waiting for a Star to Fall
16. Milli Vanilli: Baby Don't Forget My Number
17. Adeva: Respect
18. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
19. Inner City: Good Life
20. Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock: Get on the Dance Floor
21. Mica Paris & Will Downing: Where Is the Love?
22. Simply Red: It's Only Love
23. Sheena Easton: The Lover in Me
24. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
25. Level 42: Tracie
26. Natalie Cole: I Live for Your Love
27. Yazz: Fine Time
28. Raze: Break 4 Love
29. Samantha Fox: I Only Wanna Be with You
30. Kim Wilde: Four Letter Word
31. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
32. The Waterboys: Fisherman's Blues
33. The Stranglers: Grip '89
34. The Four Tops: Loco in Acapulco
35. Angry Anderson: Suddenly
36. Luther Vandross: She Won't Talk to Me
37. Monie Love: I Can Do This
38. Debbie Gibson: Lost in Your Eyes
39. Big Country: Peace in Our Time
40. Freiheit: Keeping the Dream Alive

~~~~~

One of the unexpected side effects of keeping this blog is that I frequently find myself enjoying songs that I never thought much of when I was younger. Many of these fall into the unfashionable category. I've already heaped undue praise on Marc Almond's duet with Gene Pitney at the top of the chart but it isn't difficult to find another less than hip hit single. The runner-up this week is The Living Years by Mike + The Mechanics, a part-time group led by Genesis guitarist Mike Rutherford. It was a song I didn't pay much attention to at the time - save for my cynical but hilarious dismissal of the "when my father passed away" line in which I accused of them of just trying to make a buck - but now find rather touching. A part of the video which seems to sum up my change of heart is when Mike stands with his son at his father's grave. The boy looks for a sec and then wanders off while his dad remains motionless: I used to be the boy but now I'm the man. Unloved and unlistened to as it was by many of my generation, it was still a pretty big hit and remains a staple of dentist offices and lite rock radio stations. Plenty were obviously affected by its pathos and I'm now one of them.

The generation gap described in The Living Years, however, doesn't seem present on the charts at this time. Finishing off the Top 3 is Roy Orbison's catchy You Got It. Having passed away unexpectedly back in December, his stock was high and this undoubtedly helped the single do as well as it did. Nevertheless, it  was something I quite liked and I suspect a lot of other young listeners at the time felt the same way. (Bear in mind this is long before it became cool to listen to older music) Orbison's death may have helped it get on the charts but the record itself made it go up.

Elsewhere, we have Baby Boomers and Generation X (not that we were called that at the time; Nirvana, plaid shirts and generational angst seemed a long way off) continuing to come together. Then Jerico's Big Area is the sort of storming rocker of the time that had the requisite bite to appeal to young listeners with a delivery that was sufficiently MOR for parents not to demand their kids shut off that bloody racket. The presence of synths and a very eighties big production should render it dated but it still sounds good to me. It's no wonder they were tipped for big things that never materialized. 

We were off to Ipswich this week to attend a production of Ten Little Indians. Our negative experience at The Secret of Sherlock Holmes a couple weeks earlier having not quite ruined the theatre for us and a good thing too since it was brilliant. The play was that evening but we arrived at midday for some shopping. My dad shook his head as I picked out yet another tape to add to my collection - this time it was the double collection The Hits Album - but he must have known he was asking for trouble when I began browsing. It was around this time that I began making a habit of finding a way to flip through records and tapes wherever we went. No doubt it helped that I could do so in a bookstore (W.H. Smith), a chemist (Boots) and a catch-all retail outfit (Woolworths) that could be found in every town and city in the British Isles. (Amazing, too, when you consider that today we barely have any record stores around, let alone shops that specialize in other goods that also happen to carry records) Browsing the racks of singles and albums soon became as enjoyable as buying them and it's something I enjoy to this day.

It was also in Ipswich that I bought a pair of jeans for myself for the first time. We visited Ipswich market - who really ought to update their webpage - and I picked out a choice pair of acid wash nut-huggers that immediately became the most prized piece of my wardrobe, even more than my Coca-Cola jean jacket. I'd always been a jogging pants kid but this was a bit of a sartorial turning point. And I sure wore the life out of those jeans: they're present in just about every picture taken of me (until the May heat wave at which point I reverted to my beloved clam diggers) and they got particularly worn upon our return to Canada when I was back at a school without a uniform. You'd think I would've invested in a second - not to mention a third - pair of jeans but there were far too many tapes for me to buy.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Love Train
older Paul's retro pick: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart

22 January 1989: You Can Whistle as Well as You Hear

1. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
2. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
3. Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
4. Roy Orbison: You Got It
5. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
6. Erasure: Crackers International
7. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
8. Neneh Cherry: Buffalo Stance
9. Will to Power: Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird
10. Holly Johnson: Love Train
11. Boy Meets Girl: Waiting for a Star to Fall
12. Inner City: Good Life
13. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
14. Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock: Get on the Dance Floor
15. Brother Beyond: Be My Twin
16. Milli Vanilli: Baby Don't Forget My Number
17. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
18. Kim Wilde: Four Letter Word
19. Mica Paris & Will Downing: Where Is the Love?
20. Adeva: Respect
21. Then Jerico: Big Area
22. The Four Tops: Loco in Acapulco
23. Natalie Cole: I Live for Your Love
24. Freiheit: Keeping the Dream Alive
25. Angry Anderson: Suddenly
26. Duran Duran: All She Wants Is
27. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
28. Level 42: Tracie
29. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
30. Raze: Break 4 Love
31. New Model Army: Stupid Question
32. a-ha: You Are the One [remix]
33. Cookie Crew: Born This Way (Let's Dance)
34. Sheena Easton: The Lover in Me
35. The Stranglers: Grip '89
36. The Darling Buds: Hit the Ground
37. Gary Moore: After the War
38. Simply Red: It's Only Love
39. Samantha Fox: I Only Wanna Be with You
40. The Waterboys: Fisherman's Blues

~~~~~

I've transcribed about twenty-five charts up until now and, at last, we have a number one that I consider to be genuinely thrilling. That's right, thrilling. Beau Koo Jack thrilling. Louie Louie thrilling. Wuthering Heights thrilling. Tell all your friends, pull out a bottle of booze and let the melodies wash all over you, bloody thrilling.

Why the love for Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart? Well, first and foremost, it is a vocalist's masterclass. Marc Almond and Gene Pitney pull out all the stops yet still keep their eyes on economy. It probably helps that they're performing a duet that was meant for a soloist. For the purpose of this blog I've been listening to Pitney's original take from 1967, Almond's solo turn on his 1988 album The Stars We Are and Nick Cave's rendition from around the same time. All are good but lacking something. Pitney's version is a bit unsure of itself, lacking the dramatics that make a number like Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa such a treat. Almond's (as well as Cave's) manages to tap into the song's melancholic dark side but it lacks Pitney's control. Getting a second shot at it,  the veteran delivers the goods and then some and the upstart more than holds his own. Though he'll chiefly be remembered for Tainted Love, Almond's performance here is a reminder of what a major player he always threatened to be. (Freaky Trigger's Tom Ewing even posits that it set the pace for the cross-generational duet that took off in the nineties, so it does have that to answer for. Natalie Cole singing with her long-deceased father and those lame duets albums: cheers, Marc and Gene)

Still, the appeal of this outstanding hit was largely lost on me at the time. I was otherwise occupied by Kim Wilde's Four Letter Word which had begun to enchant me around Christmas time. By now it was slipping down the charts which meant its airplay was nil but I maintained my loyalty. I also did my best to like Fine Young Cannibals and their hit She Drives Me Crazy. Catchy and with traces of Prince and metal and a drum machine to keep time, it's the sort of all-over-the-place mess that ought to have appealed but, instead, left me indifferent - and these feelings of malaise towards it remain. It was the sort of thing that everyone around me seemed to like: it was probably the most popular song of the period among friends at school and there was even a snippet on an old cassette.

It was Friday night and John and Debbie and their young daughter Aimee had just come down for the weekend. Making up for the fact that I never had a younger brother or sister and being young enough that I could still enjoy playing with toys, I bonded with Aimee. Remembering a silly phone-in show routine that I used to do with my sister ("This is Dr Ruth at 222-22222222222..." was a phrase of Julie's that I found hysterically funny for some reason), I got out the sad little tape recorder/radio we kept in our room, popped in the one blank tape I had and began to record a similar bit. Aimee was quickly giggling as I copied my sister's ghastly German accent. This went on for a while but then, at one point, in the background, you could hear my mum singing "She drives me crazy!" as she was fixing dinner. (A pity I no longer have the tape)

The next day we were off to London to visit Harrow. It was only back in September that I found myself in fearful awe of Mayflower and its many three and four story buildings, multiple gymnasiums, vast rugby and cricket pitches, swimming pool and two cafeterias but this was something altogether different. This place was huge, I could only imagine how frightened and intimidated I would have been had I been a young Harrovian at the time. While Billericay had a comfy, middle class-ness about it, Harrow exuded exclusivity. Many Old Harrovians had carved their names into the walls of one room. We were shown Winston Churhill's name though I forgot to look for Jawaharlal Nehru and Alain de Botton. I came away impressed but far from envying the average Harrow student. Sure, most of them are probably lawyers or captains of industry or in a cushy, mid-level position they didn't earn but are they happy? Have they really lived?

Returning to Laindon by train, we disembarked and headed back to our place. As the train pulled away some yobs shouted angrily at me. They must have been West Ham supporters unhappy about the Spurs scarf I was wearing. See what you're missing, Old Harrovians?

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Four Letter Word
older Paul's retro pick: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart

15 January 1989: And I Know It Ain't the Wine Cause I Feel Just Fine

1. Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
2. Erasure: Crackers International
3. Neneh Cherry: Buffalo Stance
4. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
5. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
6. Will to Power: Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird
7. Roy Orbison: You Got It
8. Inner City: Good Life
9. Boy Meets Girl: Waiting for a Star to Fall
10. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
11. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
12. Kim Wilde: Four Letter Word
13. Duran Duran: All She Wants Is
14. The Four Tops: Loco in Acapulco
15. Angry Anderson: Suddenly
16. Freiheit: Keeping the Dream Alive
17. Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock: Get on the Dance Floor
18. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
19. Milli Vanilli: Baby Don't Forget My Number
20. a-ha: You Are the One [remix]
21. Holly Johnson: Love Train
22. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
23. Cookie Crew: Born This Way (Let's Dance)
24. Adeva: Respect
25. Climie Fisher: Love Like a River
26. Status Quo: Burning Bridges (On and Off and On Again)
27. The Darling Buds: Hit the Ground
28. Mica Paris & Will Downing: Where Is the Love?
29. Brother Beyond: Be My Twin
30. Natalie Cole: I Live for Your Love
31. New Model Army: Stupid Questions
32. Phil Collins: Two Hearts
33. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
34. Level 42: Tracie
35. Royal House: Yeah Baby
36. Michael Jackson: Smooth Criminal
37. Raze: Break 4 Love
38. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
39. Petula Clark: Downtown '88
40. Gary Moore: After the War

~~~~~

One of the Christmas presents I neglected to mention a few weeks back was one I never saw. Grandma Ella and Grandpa Bill sent me £100.00 which my dad promptly - and, I must say, wisely - decided to hold on to and allow me to access whenever I so desired. We hadn't arrived back in Laindon before my sister had already squandered spent her own holiday cash on a leather jacket purchased in the imaginatively named town of Street; my gift would be spent in a more piecemeal fashion. Care to guess what the bulk of it would spent on? Having been into music for the past several months, I had some catching up to do.

For Christmas I was given three tapes and during our brief interregnum back in Laindon I asked my mum to pick up a compilation called Hit Mix '88 which I'd just seen advertised on TV. My first purchase proper, however, wouldn't be until we took one of our frequent day trips into London. Back in August or September, I mentioned our first visit to the Tower Records store on Piccadilly Circus and how it was the first record store I enjoyed going into and here I was picking up Pet Shop Boys' Introspective. I was awfully proud of my purchase (My mum less so: "This has only six songs on it," she stated in horror as she examined the the sleeve. I tried protesting that every track was seven or eight minutes long but to no avail: "This has only six songs on it," she repeated to my disinterested dad)

My new acquisition stuffed into my pocket, we headed to Wyndham's Theatre on Charing Cross Road to attend The Secret of Sherlock Holmes. At a time when a young Benedict Cumberbatch was a member of Harrow's Rattigan Society of dramatic arts and not even a glint in Mark Gatiss' eye, we were there to see the only Holmes that ever mattered, Jeremy Brett. Even I kind of knew who he was and I had no interest whatsoever in Edwardian England's favourite coked-up sleuth. My parents and sister were excited and figured we were in for a thrilling, edge-of-seat mystery. A good thing, then, that I wasn't expecting much since I wasn't similarly disappointed. Holmes and Watson (played by Edward Hardwicke, also renowned for for his sidekick turn on the telly) spent much of the show discussing some stuff that must have fascinated some in the audience, just not any of us. I spent the bulk of the performance fidgeting in my seat and occasionally taking a peak at the cassette in my jacket pocket.

Introspective would kick off my obsession with buying cassettes for the remainder of our year - and, for that matter, a lifelong love of consuming tapes and, a few years later, CD's. It would also lead me towards collecting many, many other Pet Shop Boys albums in the years ahead. Introspective in '89 lead to Behaviour in '90 right on up to Super just a few months ago. As for The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, I would go on to watch some of the nineties series and much of the recent Sherlock episodes, though not with any devotion or loyalty - and I still haven't bothered with the novels and short stories. I did, however, take a great deal of pride in making my old friend Stephen jealous for having seen Jeremy Brett on a West End stage - even if I much preferred the Pet Shop Boys in a West End town.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Four Letter Word
older Paul's retro pick: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart

8 January 1989: I Hear Your Name Whisper on the Wind

1. Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
2. Erasure: Crackers International
3. Neneh Cherry: Buffalo Stance
4. Inner City: Good Life
5. Angry Anderson: Suddenly
6. Kim Wilde: Four Letter Word
7. The Four Tops: Loco in Acapulco
8. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
9. Duran Duran: All She Wants Is
10. Will to Power: Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird
11. Status Quo: Burning Bridges (On and Off and On Again)
12. Boy Meets Girl: Waiting for a Star to Fall
13. a-ha: You Are the One [remix]
14. Freiheit: Keeping the Dream Alive
15. Phil Collins: Two Hearts
16. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
17. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
18. Cliff Richard: Mistletoe and Wine
19. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
20. Michael Jackson: Smooth Criminal
21. Bros: Cat Among the Pigeons / Silent Night
22. Climie Fisher: Love Like a River
23. Rick Astley: Take Me to Your Heart
24. Roy Orbison: You Got It
25. Petula Clark: Downtown '88
26. Londonbeat: 9 a.m. (The Comfort Zone)
27. Tiffany: Radio Romance
28. New Order: Fine Time
29. Cookie Crew: Born This Way (Let's Dance)
30. Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock: Get on the Dance Floor
31. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
32. Milli Vanilli: Baby Don't Forget My Number
33. The Darling Buds: Hit the Ground
34. Natalie Cole: I Live for Your Love
35. U2: Angel of Harlem
36. INXS: Need You Tonight
37. Bomb the Bass featuring Maureen: Say a Little Prayer
38. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
39. Royal House: Yeah Baby
40. Adeva: Respect

~~~~~

Back in this blog's infancy - August and September in case you'd forgotten; at this point it's nudging oh so close to middle age - I kept tabs on the gradual purge of hits that predated our arrival in England. It was as if I couldn't quite appreciate the goings on of the Top 40 until its residents were as fresh-faced as I was. And now it's 2017 and I'm looking back at 1989 and I find myself performing a similar task: when will the new year be rid of last year's leftovers?

Judging by just the second week of January, it doesn't look like it will take too long. Last week's rebounding hits proving a one-off, we've got a trove of newcomers as well as a few making big leaps up the listing. But as my old prof Barry Baldwin used to say about my essays, they're a bit of a curate's egg.

For many '89 is a year that goes someway towards redeeming the musical wasteland that was the eighties. Needless to say, I'm not one of them. There's a certain slickness about the decade's final year in hits such as Boy Meets World's Waiting for a Star to Fall and Will to Power's seventies medley Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird that marks an apogee from even the breezier AOR cuts from the likes of Belinda Carlise and Eric Carmen from just a year or so earlier. The former kind of works and has even managed to age reasonably well largely due to being almost annoyingly catchy. The latter, however, takes a pair of lame pieces of soft rock from fifteen years earlier and backs them with a drum machine and superfluous synths. Will to Power's main drawback, however, was its vocalists: while the female singer does a passable job on the Baby I Love Your Way lyrics - even if her vocal is as overwrought as any power ballad of the age - her male counterpart on Freebird is appallingly nasal and whiny. If the fusion of Peter Frampton and Lynyrd Skynyrd's signpost hits is meant to be a John Lennon-Yoko Ono-esque heartplay then it is poorly thought out: does she seriously love his way when he's crying about being so damn free?

For the past several months I had been glued to my parents and sister. We were never a every-third-Saturday-is-family-fun-night kind of family but during our year in England we became attached. It was never a conscious thing. Back in the fall, our form room teacher Miss Mitchell tried to organize a day out for our class to go rollerskating. There was probably something already preoccupying our weekend but I didn't want to go anyway. School was fine but all I really wanted to do was go home and be with Mum and Dad and Julie. (And, you know, listen to some music)

During this week, however, things began to alter a bit. First years had lessons cancelled as we piled into coaches heading for London. We were off to see a play at what I've always assumed to be the Royal Albert Hall. (Thinking about it now it feels like it can't possibly have been there; I'm quite sure I just told myself we were going to the RAH because it gave an air prestige to an otherwise mundane outing) The show was a chaotic affair about some sort of competition or Olympics, the details of which likely began to slip away while on the coach journey back to Billericay. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and came away from it with my customary goofy looking smile that made clear my approval. I was aghast, then, to discover that my mates considered it to be "childish" (from Richard's review), "silly" (Neil's) and "rubbish" (Sean's). I tried going back on my gushing levels of praise but they saw right through it. And, of course, they were right to do so: I liked the stupid play and should have been man enough to stand by it.

I like to think that this experience was enjoyable as much for the excitement of going to London without my family, which it certainly was at the time. In addition, it marked the beginning of my love for attending plays. It was brilliant to be able to get out of school to go see a performance such as this. We never went to see plays at Highwood.

Imagine my disappointment, then, that in my dad's records of our year in England he has marked:

Fri Jan 13             Battlefield Band in Basildon

Sat Jan 14            Train to London, meeting Debbie and John, National Gallery

                             Julie attended Bros concert

But "Tue Jan 10               Paul way too impressed by a bunch of kids running around on a stage; I fear my son may be simple" is nowhere to be seen. Plays, it would seem, aren't quite as important as Scottish folk and teen idols.

~~~~~

young Paul's favourite: Four Letter Word

older Paul's retro pick: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart

1 January 1989: Who's Lookin' Good Today, Who's Lookin' Good in Every Way?

1. Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
2. Erasure: Crackers International
3. Angry Anderson: Suddenly
4. Inner City: Good Life
5. Cliff Richard: Mistletoe and Wine
6. Neneh Cherry: Buffalo Stance
7. The Four Tops: Loco in Acapulco
8. Status Quo: Burning Bridges (On and Off and On Again)
9. Kim Wilde: Four Letter Word
10. Bros: Cat Among the Pigeons / Silent Night
11. Phil Collins: Two Hearts
12. Michael Jackson: Smooth Criminal
13. Petula Clark: Downtown '88
14. Rick Astley: Take Me to Your Heart
15. a-ha: You Are the One [remix]
16. Freiheit: Keeping the Dream Alive
17. U2: Angel of Harlem
18. Robin Beck: First Time
19. New Order: Fine Time
20. Tiffany: Radio Romance
21. INXS: Need You Tonight
22. Londonbeat: 9 a.m. (The Comfort Zone)
23. Bananarama: Nathan Jones
24. Bomb the Bass featuring Maureen: Say a Little Prayer
25. Duran Duran: All She Wants Is
26. A Tribe of Toffs: John Kettley Is a Weatherman
27. Pet Shop Boys: Left to My Own Devices
28. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
29. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
30. Hithouse: Jack to the Sound of the Underground
31. Boy Meets Girl: Waiting for a Star to Fall
32. Enya: Evening Falls...
33. Bon Jovi: Born to Be My Baby
34. Yazz: Stand Up for Your Love Rights
35. Annie Lennox & Al Green: Put a Little Love in Your Heart
36. Shakin' Stevens: True Love
37. Climie Fisher: Love Like a River
38. Humanoid: Stakker Humanoid
39. Will to Power: Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird
40. Natalie Cole: I Live for Your Love

~~~~~

1989. A new year and with it a brand new number one. Of course it a track that had languished in the chart's runner-up position all through December so there was absolutely nothing new about it. Perceptive readers will note that Especially for You had been my favourite throughout that time as well and you might expect me to have been thrilled by it's promotion to the top spot. While I wasn't indifferent to the news, I greeted the development with plenty of anticlimax: there was kind of the feeling that hitting the top spot in January was just a consolation prize for having missed the Christmas number one. It was an obvious case of too little, too late. Plus, you know, I was pretty damn sick of it by this point.

There's an odd quirk about this week's chart as several singles that had been trending down enjoyed a sudden resurgence. A full dozen tracks had bounce backs, including one - Yazz's Stand Up for Your Love Rights - which had been off the Top 40 entirely for several weeks. They say that January is dead time for chart activity and this would go some way to explain such an oddity. (I was going to examine similar post-Christmas Top 40's from the mid-eighties to the early nineties to see if they yielded similar results but I'm currently back home for the holidays and I just didn't have the time) In addition, English kids had Christmas record tokens to redeem and they probably opted to purchase singles with them that they'd grown familiar with over the holidays. (We never had record tokens back in Canada, just those Sam the Record Man gift certificates that I'd always spend on albums; the very idea of spending music money on a single seemed like a colossal waste to me)

We spent New Year's in Peterborough, as we continued to avoid our cramped and cold place, this time staying with the Douglas' at their equally cramped and cold place, thus finishing off our Christmas holidays where they'd began just over two weeks earlier. I spent some of the first day of 1989 at a wave pool, thus bringing back memories of visits to Calgary's Village Square Leisure Centre.

Back in Laindon on Monday, I was back at school the following day. Dad had meetings first thing in the morning and, due to some arrangement that I can no longer recall, dropped my sister and I off in the centre of Billericay from where we were to walk to Mayflower. The morning was cool and clear and we managed to make that walk take about as long as possible. As we trudged reluctantly to school we were stopped by the mother of Naomi, one of my sister's closest friends. She invited us to her place where we could relax and wait for school to start. My sister normally didn't want to have anything to do with me back then - looking back I can't say I blame her - but she made an exception as we sat on a sofa in Naomi's living room. They didn't even seem to mind that I was walking close to them as we all proceeded on to school.

For whatever reason we were requested to wait in the main gymnasium before classes were to begin. It was as if they'd chosen to herd us into a spot so we weren't kicking off the New Year by running amok on the playground or sports field. Remind them where they are.

And where exactly was I? I was starting a new term, I was mad about pop music and I was becoming more and more comfortable in my surroundings. I was leaving behind my childhood but I couldn't quite rid myself of the parallel universe life that I'd left behind in Calgary. '89 would be about throwing off the shackles of my previous jogging pants-professional wrestling-comic books world in favour of my newfound existence of Top 40-thinking about girls-travelling around Britain. Trading in one set of shackles for another, as it would turn out.

~~~~~

young Paul's favourite: You Are the One

older Paul's retro pick: Left to My Own Devices (what else?)