12 March 1989: Over and Over and Over and Over, the Radio's on but I Don't Hear a Song

1. Jason Donovan: Too Many Broken Hearts
2. Madonna: Like a Prayer
3. Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: Help!
4. Donna Summer: This Time I Know It's for Real
5. Sam Brown: Stop!
6. Paula Abdul: Straight Up
7. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
8. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
9. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
10. Living in a Box: Blow the House Down
11. Michael Jackson: Leave Me Alone
12. The Reynolds Girls: I'd Rather Jack
13. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
14. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
15. Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler: Keep On Movin'
16. Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady: Turn Up the Bass
17. Dusty Springfield: Nothing Has Been Proved
18. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
19. Womack & Womack: Celebrate the World
20. Deacon Blue: Wages Day
21. Guns N' Roses: Paradise City
22. New Order: Round and Round
23. Fuzzbox: International Rescue
24. Depeche Mode: Everything Counts [live]
25. Chanelle: One Man
26. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
27. WASP: Mean Man
28. Alyson Williams: Sleep Talk
29. The Wonder Stuff: Who Wants to Be the Disco King?
30. Vixen: Cryin'
31. Elvis Costello: Veronica
32. Kon Kan: I Beg Your Pardon
33. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
34. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
35. Tone Loc: Wild Thing / Loc'ed After Dark
36. Kim Wilde: Love in the Natural Way
37. New Model Army: Vagabonds
38. The Four Tops: Indestructible
39. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
40. Holly Johnson: Love Train

~~~~~

An Aussie soap heartthrob, a girl group and their comedic doppelgängers, a faded disco-era legend and a pair of hopeless sisters: the Stock Aitken Waterman stable in all its glory. The songwriting/production trio had racked up an awful lot of hits over the previous half decade but by 1989 represented their commercial apogee. It also just so happened to be when the wheels were beginning to unhinge off their enterprise.

I've written previously that I admired Jason Donovan at the time and, judging by some footage on youtube, it's not exactly difficult to see why. He looked great, seemed like a friendly and genuine chap and the ladies simply worshiped him. Crucially, though few discussed this element at the time, he didn't encourage young males to resent his popularity with the fair sex the way we would with the likes of Bros and New Kids on the Block. Smug teen idols of yesterday and today all give off vibes that only they can score the choice womenfolk; Jason, by contrast, made guys feel like they too could get the girl. All he lacked was decent singing and good material but, lacking in those ingredients though it was, Too Many Broken Hearts was still insanely catchy. The thrill of its first week on the top spot, however, had worn off by week two and it was beginning to look like a lame duck number one. We all knew that Madonna would not be denied.

Red Nose Day had come gone and Bananarama's rendition of The Beatles' Help! was the Comic Relief single. They do a passable job of it but, in truth, that's largely down to the efforts of Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and Kathy Burke as wannabe Bananas Lananeeneenoonoo. Their comedic interjections ("round, round, round" "daaaa-aaa-aownnn" - I've never been able to hear the original without adding ) and sassy yet apathetic attitude in the video make it memorable. Minus the French & Saunders touches, however, it comes across as Karen, Sarah and the other one just going through the motions, which is something they'd grown accustomed to as the eighties began drawing to a close. While it wasn't obvious at the time, Bananarama were pretty much done as far as their significance was concerned while their comedic cohorts would only become more successful into the nineties. Bananarama would be aspiring to be more like Lananeeneenoonoo before long.

Donna Summer's This Time I Know It's for Real is yet another SAW number that had climbed its way into the Top 5. It would soon be a big favourite of mine as I began to tire of Too Many Broken Hearts but it's slighter than I remember it being back in the day. It was great that a legend of the disco age could have a renaissance but those old enough to remember her early work must have known that this just couldn't compare to Hot Stuff and I Feel Love. 

And, finally, we come to the nadir of Stock Aitken Waterman, the moment that their empire began to crumble. I'd Rather Jack by Merseyside sister act The Reynolds Girls was conceived as an attack on DJ's and critics spurning their records but the results merely come across as cheap and whiny. The tune nicks some squelching from the once burgeoning, now faltering acid house scene which made it seem almost as dated as Pink Floyd and the Stones who are lampooned in the lyrics. If it didn't manage to alienate those who dug their Dire Straits just as much their Yazz then the naff presentation and amateurish dancing on the part of the Reynolds Girls proved a further turn off. Ironically, a year later SAW were having Kylie remind people to "remember the old days, remember The O'Jays" in the much better single Step Back in Time.

Happily, there was an antidote to the SAW shitshow. Unfortunately, The Wonder Stuff's Who Wants to Be the Disco King? only hit the chart's lower end and wasn't something I was aware of at the time. It wouldn't be until I was an awkward, frequently cheesed off fourteen-year-old that I had the opportunity to get into loudmouth laureate Miles Hunt and his fellow Stourbridge urchins but while Caught in My Shadow and The Size of a Cow were perfect tunes for my angsty teens (I always felt that because I had The Wonder Stuff I had no room in my life for grunge), I might have done well to hear someone rail against all this phony, manufactured pop at a younger age.

Still, I could very well have been fodder for one of Miles Hunt's blisteringly snide attacks for I was off to hob-nob with royalty this week. The 13th being Commonwealth Day, my dad took any excuse possible to get out of work - and get Julie and me out of class - by signing us up to attend a service at Westminster Abbey along with very special guest HM Elizabeth II, ver Queen. The itinerary for the day in London didn't seem especially promising but the chance to get out of an afternoon of making peppermint creams in home economics and composing my own private creed in religious studies really made me see the bright side of dressing up to see a royal. Not that I went all out with dolling myself up for the occasion: I wore my school uniform with my green and black sweater in place of the blazer and, judging by the photo taken either right before or just after the ceremony, it was yet another day in which I'd neglected to drag a comb through my hair.

The service was neither short nor long. We sat in our alloted seats for a little while but not so long that I got fidgety. Suddenly, everyone stood up and a procession began to, uh, proceed past us. In the middle of a group of very important looking people I spotted the Queen. She seemed appropriately regal but had the look of ever-present boredom that doubtless comes with having attended a lifetime's worth of Commonwealth Day ceremonies. Though impressive in its own way, it was still one of those things that really isn't such a big deal at the time and in retrospect. It's something I typically forget to even tell people and, having just typed the the first half of this sentence, I'm not sure why I've bothered telling it to anyone.

The service over, we then ventured over to Covent Garden to visit The Maple Leaf Pub, London's Canadian tavern of choice - though that's probably due to it being the only game in town in that regard. It was the kind of place that can only attract the rabidly homesick so, naturally, we were smitten. I enjoyed my Montreal smoked meat sandwich so much that I vowed then and there to return. In subsequent years I've been to a few equivalent joints - pre-fab Irish pubs in Bangkok, Singapore and even on the tiny Indonesian island of Gili Trawangan, dive sports bars in Jakarta's Blok M and Seoul's Itaewon - and am now resigned to both their functionality and just how depressing they can be. The ham and cheese baguette might be decent, it might be a cool novelty to see a hockey game for the first time in months or years and there's always a good chance you can strike up an agreeable conversation with a fellow expat. But the beer is no better than anywhere else in the area, the prices are astronomical, the atmosphere isn't really all that Canadian or Irish and that expat will soon get on your nerves. Even if that expat you were chatting with was me.

~~~~~

young Paul's favourite: Too Many Broken Hearts

older Paul's retro pick: Who Wants to Be the Disco King?

5 March 1989: I'll Give You Ten Good Reasons to Stay

1. Jason Donovan: Too Many Broken Hearts
2. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
3. Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: Help!
4. Sam Brown: Stop!
5. Michael Jackson: Leave Me Alone
6. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
7. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
8. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
9. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
10. Living in a Box: Blow the House Down
11. Donna Summer: This Time I Know It's for Real
12. Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady: Turn Up the Bass
13. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
14. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
15. Paula Abdul: Straight Up
16. Dusty Springfield: Nothing Has Been Proved
17. The Reynolds Girls: I'd Rather Jack
18. Deacon Blue: Wages Day
19. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
20. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
21. WASP: Mean Man
22. Depeche Mode: Everything Counts [live]
23. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
24. Womack & Womack: Celebrate the World
25. Tone Loc: Wild Thing / Loc'ed After Dark
26. Holly Johnson: Love Train
27. Vixen: Cryin'
28. The Wonder Stuff: Who Wants to Be the Disco King?
29. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
30. Fuzzbox: International Rescue
31. Yazz: Fine Time
32. New Order: Round and Round
33. Def Leppard: Rocket
34. Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians: What I Am
35. Roy Orbison: You Got It
36. Chanelle: One Man
37. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
38. Elvis Costello: Veronica
39. Alyson Williams: Sleep Talk
40. New Model Army: Vagabonds

~~~~~

The night of March 5, 1989 saw our own little Beatles-Stones, Blur-Oasis chart battle. We had just finished dinner and Bruno Brooks was getting down to the nitty gritty of his weekly Top 40 rundown. Simple Minds were at number six and, thus, we knew there would be a brand new chart topper. Michael Jackson was also falling and Sam Brown was standing pat in fourth place. Radio 1's Bruno Brookes then announced that Bananarama and their comedic doppelgängers Lananeeneenoonoo were up to number three with their cover of Help! It was an appropriate number to get the bronze medal since it was one both sides could agree on: my sister and I liked the 'Narns' distinctive in unison vocals and the amusing touches courtesy of French and Saunders, my mum appreciated a Beatles cover that wasn't utterly wretched.

Help! began to come to a close and we waited. We all knew the next two singles but we didn't know who would hit number one. Mum was convinced it was Michael Ball's Love Changes Everything that had the top spot sown up; Julie and I were equally sure that Jason Donovan's Too Many Broken Hearts was destined for number one. No one placed a bet on the result, no one thought to do so; all that mattered was who would coming in first. Finally, Brookes came back on to resolve our little household impasse: Michael Ball was at number two. My sister and I enjoyed a satisfactory bout of gloating while Mum looked severely annoyed.

This all seems so wonderfully quaint now, doesn't it? A tedious and overly lush Andrew Lloyd Weber tune from the already massive flop musical Aspects of Love competing with a catchy yet moronic piece of fluff by a heartthrob Aussie soap star. Hardly what one would call a murderer's row of classic pop. But I love the fact that my mum cared so much about that week's UK number one and that we were all so invested in it. (For his part, my dad didn't try to ignore all the hullabaloo even if he did fire off a few cynical remarks our way) Does anyone these days care about the charts the way we did on that Sunday night in March? (Fond as I am of that little anecdote it's also a sad reminder of how I now live at a time when hardly anyone cares about music anymore)

Windsor was just another town in a country and in a year filled with towns. The B&B was crap, the weather wasn't especially good and even browsing the records at WH Smiths tiresome. Sunday morning in the drizzle wandering around the park adjacent to the Castle (and, I gather, oh so close to the hallowed halls of Eton; not that I cared at the time seeing as how we were already surrogate Old Harrovians) was nice but I spoiled the mood by trying to look clever in the photos taken by my dad. Okay, the Safari Park was pretty good, I definitely enjoyed that, even though I can't help but look back on it knowing that it was soon to become a Legoland.

This week's entry features a double dose of torpor. At the time I was getting sick of spending damn-near every weekend away and now I look back on places like Windsor with ennui. A rot was beginning to set in during these mid-period months of our year in England. This may have been the time to have dialed back on the weekend day and overnight trips since the novelty had definitely worn off. It's also the point where blogging about such trips gets to be too much. What more can be said?

Well, one thing actually. The trip to Windsor concluded with an impromptu decision of Dad's. Perhaps also feeling the mundanity of all this travel, he got in the car and announced that he fancied cutting through London on the way home rather than taking the mammoth M25. As if justifying it to himself as much as the rest of us, he claimed that it might be our last chance to do so. He was talking as if we had only a few days left in our trip, not several more months. But it triggered something in me: we now had more time behind us than ahead and our return to Canada was on the horizon. Our car edged slowly through the north of London and I began to think about how much I wanted to stay.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Too Many Broken Hearts
older Paul's retro pick: Who Wants to Be the Disco King?

26 February 1989: Don't Stop Doggin' Me Around

1. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
2. Michael Jackson: Leave Me Alone
3. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
4. Sam Brown: Stop!
5. Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: Help!
6. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
7. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
8. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
9. Jason Donovan: Too Many Broken Hearts
10. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
11. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
12. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
13. Holly Johnson: Love Train
14. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
15. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
16. Tryee featuring Kool Rock Steady: Turn Up the Bass
17. Living in a Box: Blow the House Down
18. Yazz: Fine Time
19. Def Leppard: Rocket
20. Dusty Springfield: Nothing Has Been Proved
21. Tone Loc: Wild Thing / Loc'ed After Dark
22. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
23. Depeche Mode: Everything Counts [live]
24. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
25. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
26. Deacon Blue: Wages Day
27. Roy Orbison: You Got It
28. WASP: Mean Man
29. The Style Council: Promised Land
30. Donna Summer: This Time I Know It's for Real
31. Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians: What I Am
32. The Reynolds Girls: I'd Rather Jack
33. Womack & Womack: Celebrate the World
34. Paula Abdul: Straight Up
35. Samantha Fox: I Only Wanna Be with You
36. Simply Red: It's Only Love
37. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
38. Sheen Easton: The Lover in Me
39. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
40. Vixen: Cryin'

~~~~~

I once had a friend who was absolutely crazy about Michael Jackson. He had many of his CD's and cassettes - even a few cassingles if I remember correctly - a couple posters up in his bedroom and a well-worn VHS tape of virtually all of his videos taped off of Much Music. I can't say as how it came up but he was once aghast by my claim that MJ was much more popular in Britain than in North America. He demanded I back up my assertion but I really couldn't and I'm sure I couldn't now. It was simply a feeling. He remained seminal for much longer: while my mum bought Thriller, only his commited fanbase bothered with Bad but his appeal among more general members of the public in the UK remained.  Growing up in Canada it seemed like there were always Michael Jackson jokes, in England he was still revered. I guess the tabloids were too busy with Princess Diana.

There are a lot of songs that attempt to take on critics and/or the press. A small number are quite good (Bob Dylan's Ballad of a Thin Man, The Beatles' The Ballad of John and Yoko - these are obviously throwbacks to a time when the term ballad didn't mean simply "slow song"), most are lousy (New Kids on the Block's Games, Eminem's Without Me and Stereophonics' Mr. Writer are all especially wan) and an awful lot are by people I've never heard of, which would indicate it's a growing trend of late since I have practically nothing to do with contemporary music. Michael Jackson's Leave Me Alone is one of the more famous examples of this and while by no means terrible, it does leave a lot to be desired. The eighth (eighth?!?) single released off of Bad it gives scraping the bottom of the barrel a whole new meaning (and he wasn't even done there as we'll see in the summer). A riposte to the tabloid fodder that was building up around him, it was accompanied by an innovative video that bravely laid out all the whispers and innuendo that surrounded him at the time (well, most of them anyway). In the modern parlance, he was owning the rumour mongering and may be commended for sending up up all this absurdity.

A listen to the lyrics, however, and things get a bit more suspect. Opening with the line "I don't care what you talkin' 'bout baby" is an eyebrow raiser. Surely if he really didn't care what people say about him then he wouldn't have written a song about it, particularly with such a revealing video. That's what's called a tell. The words in fact seem to be about a relationship but it's impossible to divorce it from the paparazzi that were hounding him, particularly when he's taking us on a tour of his freakshow Neverland Ranch and dancing with the bones of John Merrick in the video. It's also hard to swallow given that Jackson courted the press just as much as he derided it. While the song itself isn't bad - aside from the awful and repetitive hammering drums - it's unlikable and a sign that things weren't right for the Peter Pan of pop.

If Leave Me Alone represents Jackson as jaded and fraught then My Prerogative is Bobby Brown embracing the spotlight, hungry for fame and with much more of a commitment to flipping the bird to the critics. Being in England at the time, it was a funny song with which to be introduced to the new solo star from the USA. He was relatively unknown so not too many people would have been talkin' all this stuff about him as he claims. Still, it works as a statement of intent as much as anything else. My Prerogative is effective in this respect but I didn't care for it at the time; it seemed far too confrontational to have appealed much to me but, given that I quite liked the hits the soon followed, it likely provided a good introduction. A shame, then, that Brown's career would end up nosediving within a year or so. It seemed like he was going to remain relevant for a while but he, too, soon fell victim to the tabloids and the status of being famous for being famous. A good thing, then, that My Prerogative maps out the course of his career warts and all. He's not playing the victim just living the life he chooses. Who can't respect that?

The Norwich City-Manchester United clash from last week's entry was just a part of our second weekend up in Norfolk. Former exchange teacher Janice and her husband David graciously invited us to stay with them at their beautiful home in the picturesque hamlet of Old Buckenham. It was pretty much a cliche of every North American's fantasy of an English village: Tudor houses, thatched roof cottages and a village green. Janice and David's friendly black Chow Chow Sophie immediately won the hearts of my sister and me. Sunday morning we joined David as he walked Sophie and I couldn't have been happier. Why couldn't we live here in this village, in this house, with this dog?

It was, therefore, particularly dispiriting to be back in Laindon in our cold, uninviting, dogless home. I've mentioned our uninspiring dwellings on a few occasions here but I've so far neglected to go into much detail. Part of the problem is reluctance. I'm happy to discuss music that I found poor and places we visited that were disappointing or nondescript but I haven't had much desire to go into detailed about where we lived. The other problem is that it doesn't stand out the way so many other remnants of our year do. It was the first place we saw after arriving and the last place before we left. It was a glorified flop house. But I'll do my best to provide a few images and feelings.

To be continued.

~~~~~

young Paul's favourite: Help!

older Paul's retro pick: Looking for Linda

19 February 1989: The Turning Point of a Career in Korea Being Insincere

1. Simple Minds: Belfast Child
2. Michael Ball: Love Changes Everything
3. Marc Almond featuring Gene Pitney: Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart
4. Michael Jackson: Leave Me Alone
5. Sam Brown: Stop!
6. Bobby Brown: My Prerogative
7. Mike + The Mechanics: The Living Years
8. Holly Johnson: Love Train
9. Yazz: Fine Time
10. Rick Astley: Hold Me in Your Arms
11. Roy Orbison: You Got It
12. Bananarama/Lananeeneenoonoo: Help!
13. Texas: I Don't Want a Lover
14. S'Express: Hey Music Lover
15. Def Leppard: Rocket
16. Hue & Cry: Looking for Linda
17. Robert Howard & Kym Mazell: Wait
18. Samantha Fox: I Only Wanna Be with You
19. Ten City: That's the Way Love Is
20. Poison: Every Rose Has Its Thorn
21. Morrissey: The Last of the Famous International Playboys
22. Fine Young Cannibals: She Drives Me Crazy
23. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Can't Stay Away from You
24. Simply Red: It's Only Love
25. Sheena Easton: The Lover in Me
26. Roachford: Cuddly Toy
27. The Style Council: Promised Land
28. Dusty Springfield: Nothing Has Been Proved
29. Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
30. Tone Loc: Wild Thing / Loc'ed After Dark
31. Living in a Box: Blow the House Down
32. Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians: What I Am
33. Tyree featuring Kool Rock Steady: Turn Up the Bass
34. Depeche Mode: Everything Counts [live]
35. Debbie Gibson: Lost in Your Eyes
36. Erasure: Crackers International
37. Then Jerico: Big Area
38. Adeva: Respect
39. Pop Will Eat Itself: Can You Dig It?
40. Will to Power: Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird

~~~~~

Living in Korea, I have been amazed at the sheer randomness of some of the music that has managed to break through over here. I've met a few people here who simple revere Thin Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore (more than enough times to make me convinced that it's just a coincidence) and some friends of mine recently told me about how much they used to love Euro-pop duo The London Boys (who we'll be encountering on here soon enough); the latter was especially odd considering they'd just admitted to me that they'd never heard of Milli Vanilli before. 

Which brings us to Stop!, Sam Brown's Top 5 hit from February of '89. It's a song that's had legs over the years. It's been used in movies and soap operas and has been covered by singers all over the world. But here in Korea it has taken on a life of its own. It first began appearing in widely popular Korean dramas, sometimes as a soundtrack to a character's heartbreak but also in scenes depicting the blossoming of romance. Indeed, it has become such a cliche on TV screens here that it has more recently become a joke. Nowadays, you're more likely to encounter it on one of the ubiquitous sketch comedy shows (Gag Concert) or reality variety programs (Infinite Challenge, Running Man, 2 Days 1 Night) in order to farcically send up a love story.

It's an interesting choice of song. A standard almost from the get-go, Stop! has aged well (aside from the singer's bleached-blond hair clashing with her dark eyebrows, very much a throwback), although I'm not so sure that's a good thing. Many critics of the eighties charge that music from the period sounds dated, what with flashy sythns and huge drums being staples. But for those of us who value pop for its nostalgia, there's the danger that timeless music isn't as capable of sending the listener back. Perhaps it even indicates that if it isn't dated then it probably never really captured people to begin with. If we flash forward to the late-nineties we come across a lot of pleasant, still-appealing numbers (Semisonic's Closing Time, The New Radicals' You Get What You Give, Fatboy Slim's The Rockefeller Shank, Catatonia's Road Rage, The Spice Girls' Stop) that nevertheless failed to really make a big imprint on me the time and, as such, aren't quite capable of bringing memories back today. They've lasted - well, some of them have - but that's precisely the point: whereas a period piece triggers a memory, many timeless works exist only in the present.

I spent all this week looking forward to the weekend. (Yeah, that's an awfully trite way to begin a sentence; who doesn't begin getting excited about the following Saturday and Sunday as soon as Monday falls?) I was by now accustomed to going away from our uninspiring Laindon residence as soon as we were finished school on Friday afternoons but this particular weekend was one that got me counting down the days. We were going to a football match.

I think I imagined that football was going to be a much bigger part of my life than it actually was. I've already mentioned how I was hoping to get some pointers on how I might improve my soccer skills only for these hopes to be dashed by having Welsh P.E. instructors wanting to make men of us first years by putting us in a rugby scrum. Football was on the telly but I almost never watched it. Indeed, the part of the November '88 Spurs-Wednesday clash that I always remember stands out mostly because it constituted the bulk of my footie viewing that year. My TV time was filled with pop music, Aussie soaps and quaint sit coms about quirky losers lodging with anal retentive couples to bother with sport.

In any event, I was super excited about going to see a football match and we couldn't have picked a better club to have seen that year than Norwich City. They spent the first three or four months of the 1988-89 season at the top of the old First Division and were still within sight of Arsenal and Liverpool by the time we went to see them. Their opponents were Manchester United. If you'd told me at the time that one of these clubs was going to completely dominate English football for the next two decades I would have likely thought "well, good for Norwich!" Man U were a nothing special side at the time, the likes of Cantona, Giggs, Keane and Beckham being just a glint in the eyes of a pre-knighthood Alex Ferguson. Their's was an organization with a proud history and a very bright future but no present to speak of. Liverpool was the illustrious side of the age and I think I was a tiny bit disappointed we weren't seeing them instead.

Being part of an exchange teacher's group, we got VIP treatment that day at Carrow Road. Beers, cokes and snacks awaited us prior to kickoff in a plain room full of well-to-do Norfolkers. We were then escorted to our seats and I have an either real or invented memory of us taking a few steps on the pitch en route. The seats were choice as well. To my left behind the goalkeeper stood hundreds of fans. I scoffed at their obvious discomfort and piss-poor view of the game.

Gradually, however, I began to glance longingly at the standing room terrace. They didn't get complimentary crisps and peanuts and cups of tea at half time but these people were into the action while all I could do was observe it. Norwich supporters chanted in unison (it wasn't until that summer that I realised how much I hated singing and shouting in a group but at this point it still seemed cool) and they even seemed to move as one. My dad also began glancing their way. We took particular delight in the inflatable bananas and skeletons that dotted the crowd and before long we began to envy them. We would've traded our VIP seats for a place in the terrace. The game itself was good (Norwich won 2-1 in a score that I recall flattered United) but we were missing the experience of the real football supporters. Hopefully, we'd have that chance at some point. We're getting there.

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

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

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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