25 June 1989: I'll Leave It in Your Hands Until You're Ready

1. Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler: Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)
2. Prince: Batdance
3. The Beautiful South: Song for Whoever
4. U2: All I Want Is You
5. Jason Donovan: Sealed with a Kiss
6. Sinitta: Right Back Where We Started From
7. Cyndi Lauper: I Drove All Night
8. Gladys Knight: Licence to Kill
9. D Mob featuring LRS: It Is Time to Get Funky
10. Donna Allen: Joy and Pain
11. Double Trouble & The Rebel MC: Just Keep Rockin'
12. Guns 'N Roses: Sweet Child o' Mine [remix]
13. Queen: Breakthru
14. Cliff Richard: The Best of Me
15. Madonna: Express Yourself
16. Fuzzbox: Pink Sunshine
17. Clannad featuring Bono: In a Lifetime
18. Holly Johnson: Atomic City
19. London Boys: London Nights
20. M: Pop Muzik '89
21. Donna Summer: I Don't Wanna Get Hurt
22. Guns 'N Roses: Patience
23. The Bangles: Be with You
24. Natalie Cole: Miss You Like Crazy
25. Karyn White: Superwoman
26. Placido Domingo & Jennifer Rush: Til I Loved You
27. Bananarama: Cruel Summer '89
28. Transvision Vamp: The Only One
29. Neneh Cherry: Manchild
30. Public Enemy: Fight the Power
31. Malcolm McLaren & The Bootzilla Orchestra: Waltz Darling
32. Tone Loc: Funky Cold Medina
33. Waterfront: Cry
34. Tom Petty: I Won't Back Down
35. Kylie Minogue: Hand on Your Heart
36. Living in a Box: Gatecrashing
37. Monie Love: Grandpa's Party
38. Sonia: You'll Never Stop Me from Loving You
39. Joyce Sims: Looking for a Love
40. A Guy Called Gerald: Voodoo Ray

~~~~~

This week's Top 40 is bookended by its best - and, probably, most influential - songs. Back to Life was enjoying its first fortnight at number one and it was an exciting single to have on top. It was everywhere and everyone seemed to love it - and there simply wasn't an alternative tune to get behind. These factors, however, made it ubiquitous and I was soon too go off it, particularly after the kids in the place attached to our's acquired a copy of the single and set about playing it to death. The tissue-thin walls of Mellow Purgess conspired to ensure that my sister and I would have had more than enough of the great summer hit of '89 while everyone else was still captivated by it.

I could well have been similarly overexposed to A Guy Called Gerald's Voodoo Ray but for the fact that it completely passed me by. I only began hearing about it two or three years later as a key single in the evolution of Acid House into both Rave and Madchester but I was never curious enough to give it a listen. Only now, with this blog, have I bothered to give it a go. It's an impressive piece but one that can't possibly be as fresh as it would have been twenty-eight years ago. Clinging to the already outdated squelching sounds that defined Acid House a year earlier, it introduces a trance-like vibe that would become commonplace in nineties house. I would later go through a brief phase of digging a trio ravy tunes, namely Move Any Mountain by The Shamen, In Yer Face by 808 State and The Roof Is on Fire by Westbam - all three of which benefited heavily from making a deep impression on me with one and only one listen. Voodoo Ray kick-started this movement but I guess you had to be there - and be listening - to fully appreciate its scope.

The year attending Mayflower Comprehensive was slowly coming to a close - indeed, my parallel universe-self that had remained in Canada would have been just gearing up for a summer of game shows and reruns at about this time but my actual world-self in Britain still had the first half of July to go - and it was one almost completely bereft of field trips. A staple of Highwood Elementary School as much as hot dog day and white elephant sales, class excursions to spots around Calgary were often enjoyable and sometimes pointless but were always a welcome break during the long school year. School trips at Mayflower, however, were few and far between and the already modest number was reduced further by my skipping out on a pair of them.

As early as October or November, Miss Mitchell, our form teacher, had organised a Friday night outing to a disco roller rink in Basildon or Wickford. (The fact that it took place outside of school hours already diminished its stature as a field trip and it's only included here just to pad the numbers a bit) I kinda, sorta fancied two or three girls in my class at the time and this type of excursion would have been just the sort of place I could have awkwardly thought about holding hands with one while taking a lap around the rink to the strains of When Will I Be Famous by Bros - while ultimately, inevitably chickening out in the end - but all such hopes were dashed by a conflicting weekend trip with my family. I'm sure I didn't miss much.

Then, in the early part of May, my form room was set to take a day trip to Calais but I had to pass on due to my now curious status of not having a passport. (I was young enough at the time to be on my dad's passport, a practice they've since done away with) So, while my classmates were getting up early for a long day of coach trips, ferry rides and probably not a whole lot to see in France, I stayed at home and took a nice walk with my mum to Eastgate, Basildon's main shopping complex, where I enjoyed a Big Mac. Again, I probably didn't miss a whole lot.

So, aside from our January trip to London to see a childish - but still enjoyable, at least to my immature brain - panto, I'd had no field trips that year (and even that one doesn't even really count seeing as how it was for all first years; one of the things that made field trips back home so enjoyable was knowing that other students were stuck in the classroom while we were out). This was all to change with our trip to Pleasurewood Hills on the last school day of June.

Several classmates of mine had been badgering Miss Mitchell into taking us to a theme park for a while by this point but this was something I never thought would happen. Field trips may happen to be fun - the Zoo was always wonderfully chaotic and Safety City was brilliant; the Engergium, not so much - but they all had a basis in learning. An amusement park, however, was little more than an admission that our teacher had given up.

Not that Pleasurewood Hills was an especially fun place itself. I didn't know it was possible to be a theme park and not have at least one merry-go-round, one ferris wheel, one bumper car pen. (Certain that my memory was playing tricks on me and that it couldn't possibly have had only two rides, I looked it up and can now say that I stand corrected: there were in fact four rides; I had no idea they even had a roller-coaster at the time) It did have one saving grace: Shiver m' Timbers, their version of the swinging boat ride, an attraction which never has the same name at any two amusement parks or fun fairs. (It was known as Ocean Motion where I grew up and simply Viking at a place near where I live) I had to talk my friends into joining and none of them followed me as I stood with my arms aloft as the ship went fully vertical. I went on it several times that day.

The lack of amusements and funds - I only had enough pocket money to buy a snack and a souvenir key chain, which promptly fell apart as all souvenir key chains do - meant we had to amuse ourselves and my friend Richard and I made do with spitting off the chairlift ride. Cliched juvenalia aside, the highlight of this trip to an otherwise nondescript theme park was hanging out with my pack of friends. It's only when I look back at it now that I realise just how disappointing the quality and quantity of the rides was; at the time, I was having a laugh with my mates and that was all that mattered. I'm glad I didn't miss this one.

~~~~~

young Paul's favourite: Back to Life

older Paul's retro pick: Back to Life

18 June 1988: Follow Me, Don't Follow Me

1. Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler: Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)
2. Jason Donovan: Sealed with a Kiss
3. Prince: Batdance
4. Sinitta: Right Back Where We Started From
5. U2: All I Want Is You
6. Cliff Richard: The Best of Me
7. Cyndi Lauper: I Drove All Night
8. The Beautiful South: Song for Whoever
9. Guns 'N Roses: Sweet Child o' Mine [remix]
10. Madonna: Express Yourself
11. D Mob featuring LRS: It Is Time To Get Funky
12. Natalie Cole: Miss You Like Crazy
13. Double Trouble & The Rebel MC: Just Keep Rockin'
14. Fuzzbox: Pink Sunshine
15. Donna Allen: Joy and Pain
16. Donna Summer: I Don't Wanna Get Hurt
17. Transvision Vamp: The Only One
18. Neneh Cherry: Manchild
19. Bananarama: Cruel Summer '89
20. Gladys Knight: Licence to Kill
21. Clannad featuring Bono: In a Lifetime
22. Lynne Hamilton: On the Inside
23. Tone Loc: Funky Cold Medina
24. Placido Domingo & Jennifer Rush: Til I Loved You
25. Karyn White: Superwoman
26. The Bangles: Be with You
27. Holly Johnson: Atomic City
28. Tom Petty: I Won't Back Down
29. Kylie Minogue: Hand on Your Heart
30. Paula Abdul: Forever Your Girl
31. Malcolm McLaren & The Bootzilla Orchestra: Waltz Darling
32. London Boys: Requiem
33. R.E.M.: Orange Crush
34. Gerry Marsden, Paul McCartney, Holly Johnson & The Christians: Ferry Cross the Mersey
35. Public Enemy: Fight the Power
36. Bobby Brown: Every Little Step
37. Living in a Box: Gatecrashing
38. M: Pop Muzik '89
39. Joyce Sims: Looking for a Love
40. Waterfront: Cry

~~~~~

The summer of 1996 was a pleasantly nondescript time of my life. I had just finished my first year of university and celebrated this very modest milestone by randomly choosing ancient and medieval history as my major, I found myself on the hook of a girl who, to the surprise of precisely no one who wasn't me, was not the least bit interested in me and I did a few odd jobs in lieu of finding real summer employment. It was also about the time that I began to notice people opting for movies over music.

Growing up in the eighties, movies were always around but I think I always knew just how inessential they were. My parents got a VCR - or "the video" as the English would call it - when I was about six and that became our preferred medium for movies for the next decade but we were hardly renting genre-defying masterpieces. I saw and enjoyed several flicks that could capture the imagination of any kid from that age - Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future - but there are also plenty I missed out on - Goonies, Gremlins, The Never-Ending Story - that never ceases to astound contemporaries. Then, there were those movies I did see but whose details have been wiped from my memory - The Princess Bride, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Beetlejuice, Labyrinth - that apparently defined whole childhoods. I was almost exclusively a comedy kid and it's those pictures - the first two Vacations, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Summer School - that left a mark. Seen or unseen, remembered or forgotten, however, they were just movies at the end of the day. Dirty Dancing, for its part, seemed to matter far more simply because it's soundtrack was omnipresent - and this carried over well into my adolescence as Go West's The King of Wishful Thinking and Chesney Hawkes' The One and Only meant far more to me than the films that accompanied them.

It was at the tail end of my teens, however, that I began to notice that people really, really, REALLY love movies - and, almost consequently, didn't care so much about music. Now, the charts only had themselves to blame for such an apathetic public: '96 was the heyday of horrible American frat rock which reached its nadir with Deep Blue Something's wretched Breakfast at Tiffany's (an all-too appropriate song to chronicle pop's decline at the expense of movies) and UK Britpop was rapidly shifting from cool and fresh to dull and tired. At the cinema, however, was Independence Day and Mission Impossible and that was all anyone seemed interested in talking about.

It's nice, then, to look back to 1989 and a time when our culture wasn't so obsessed by films. This week's Top 40 includes three numbers from upcoming movies although at least two of which felt as though the film was promoting the single, not the other way around. Prince was no stranger to soundtracking celluloid although much like Elvis and The Beatles before him it was clear he was using pictures to advance his music career, not to make a permanent transition into film (as opposed to more recent stars who seem to see pop music as a stepping stone to Hollywood). Batdance is not one of his more beloved singles though it's always felt like vintage Prince to me. I've always respected and admired the Purple One but I've never especially liked his music and the Tim Burton Batman theme is no better, no worse than the stuff that established his superstar status in the mid-eighties. 

Climbing into the Top 20 this week is Gladys Knight's Licence to Kill from the Bond film of the same name. The movie came out at about this time to many indifferent shrugs but its theme was a bit of an underrated cracker, lacking the melancholy dramatics of a-ha's The Living Daylights but harking back to old school Shirley Bassey/Carly Simon-esque divas, Bond girls on record. I never gave any thought to seeing Licence to Kill - still haven't in fact - perhaps because I knew the best part was the single.

Finally, we get to Public Enemy's Fight the Power, which I had completely forgotten was from the Spike Lee's overrated Do the Right Thing. A bit of a drop in quality from their earlier work, it nevertheless added a much needed dose of energy to such a boring vehicle. Not that this mattered at the time considering it wasn't even out in Britain. Just like Prince and Gladys Knight - and they were soon to be joined by Bobby Brown's On Our Own from Ghostbusters 2 - Public Enemy helped build a film but didn't let themselves get bogged down by it.

My grandparents had apparently been in the UK for a couple weeks at this time. I say apparently since they were on a coach tour with my great aunt and uncle and we hardly saw them. Their previous visit had been something we looked forward to, it was exciting having them around - particularly when we were up in Scotland together - and we were sorry to see them go when they finally left in early November. This time, however, was a letdown - or it would have been had we been in a similar place as the previous autumn. Their first visit, we were only just off the plane from Calgary ourselves; now, we were just starting to think about heading home. 

Their coach trip finished, Grandma Ella and Grandpa Bill, along with Don and Betty, spent their last few days in Britain with us in Laindon. I had school so, again, my contact with them was limited but we did take a day trip to London on the penultimate day. It was a gorgeous but viciously hot day as we made our way to Greenwich. Grandpa was always a dedicated walker and I wasn't about to let the heat stop me from joining him. Fortified by several cans of ice-cold Coke, I managed to keep up okay as we took in the botanic garden. The capital was beset by a tube strike at the time and we ended up wandering through some of the East End's less-than desirable areas to get back to Fenchurch St. Station. Grandpa Bill often gave me a hard time about being lazy but I hope he was proud of me that day.

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

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

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

~~~~~

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

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

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

"There will be no summer uniforms".

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4 June 1989: Where Do We Go Now?

1. Jason Donovan: Sealed with a Kiss
2. Cliff Richard: The Best of Me
3. Gerry Marsden, Paul McCartney, Holly Johnson & The Christians: Ferry Cross the Mersey
4. Natalie Cole: Miss You Like Crazy
5. Madonna: Express Yourself
6. Sinitta: Right Back Where We Started From
7. Lynne Hamilton: On the Inside
8. Guns 'N Roses: Sweet Child o' Mind [remix]
9. Neneh Cherry: Manchild
10. Donna Summer: I Don't Wanna Get Hurt
11. Kylie Minogue: Hand on Your Heart
12. Soul II Soul featuring Caron Wheeler: Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)
13. London Boys: Requiem
14. Bobby Brown: Every Little Step
15. Edelweiss: Bring Me Edelweiss
16. Tone Loc: Funky Cold Medina / On Fire
17. Cyndi Lauper: I Drove All Night
18. Double Trouble & The Rebel MC: Just Keep Rockin'
19. D Mob featuring LRS: It Is Time to Get Funky
20. Cappella: Helyom Halib
21. Sam Brown: Can I Get a Witness?
22. Fuzzbox: Pink Sunshine
23. The Beautiful South: Song for Whoever
24. Roxette: The Look
25. Transvision Vamp: The Only One
26. Paula Abdul: Forever Your Girl
27. The Bangles: Eternal Flame
28. Deacon Blue: Fergus Sings the Blues
29. W.A.S.P.: The Real Me
30. Stefan Dennis: Don't It Make You Feel Good
31. Queen: I Want It All
32. Chaka Khan: I'm Every Woman '89
33. Bananarama: Cruel Summer '89
34. Robert Palmer: Change His Ways
35. Tom Petty: I Won't Back Down
36. Vixen: Love Made Me
37. New Model Army: Green and Grey
38. Donna Allen: Joy and Pain
39. R.E.M.: Orange Crush
40. The Jacksons: Nothin' (That Compares 2 U)

~~~~~

I didn't think about it at the time but Jason Donovan was the king of number one chart battles. He and his on and off screen love interest Kylie Minogue lost out on the Christmas number one to Cliff Richard, he then beat out Michael Ball and Andrew Lloyd Weber in March and now here he is taking out revenge on his nemesis from the previous December by copping the top spot. I've written before that I admired Donovan at the time due to his looks, his nice guy image and way with the ladies but what I neglected to mention was that he was always being thrust into the position of taking on the purveyors of music that I loathed. He was, therefore, easy to root for.

Sealed with a Kiss, however, tests one's loyalty. An already limp song when it was first made popular back in the sixties, Donovan's sluggish vocal does the slight material no favours. Now, his previous hits weren't exactly examples of classic pop but there was something to Especially for You and Too Many Broken Hearts that seemed exciting and cool, even if I can't possibly fathom why or how when I hear them today; Sealed with a Kiss was boring and made worse by its creepy video that managed to make the singer look like an eighties computer graphic.

Poor now and even blasse then, Sealed with a Kiss was still a marked improvement on The Best of Me, the pretender from Cliff Richard. Hyped as his one hundredth single, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that it would be taking the top spot. Curious then that I have no memory of it and it makes me wonder if I tried to go out of my way to avoid it. Much as I tried, as I always have, being open minded about music, this was a record that I knew I'd despise and had no desire whatsoever to have anything to do with. Listening to it today I can see why I was so keen to boycott it, the song being little more than a twee country-ish ballad

Of course if it was quality you were looking for then you had to go just outside the top ten for a new entry that wasn't drawing too much attention but was soon to be unavoidable. Soul II Soul's Back to Life (However Do You Want Me) built upon the success of their previous hit Keep on Movin' - to the extent that that it was easy to assume that the former was nothing but a copy of the latter. They certainly are similar - both feature Caron Wheeler on vocals, as well as some gently unobtrusive strings which may or may not have been sampled - but in terms of spirit that couldn't be more different. Keep on Movin' was appreciated by many of us at the time - and still is - but it's hard to see it as anything but a message to their own crowd; Back to Life, by contrast, was something that they seemed to be trying to communicate to the world. And, yet, when people look back on the music of '89 they'll mention The Stone Roses, Pixies, De La Soul and Madonna but few acknowledge the merits of Soul II Soul and their two great singles and excellent debut album.

We're now just two months away from our departure from the UK - a moment that couldn't come quick enough for some members of my family (though not me). You might think that my memories of these waning weeks would be much more vivid than earlier times but I've been drawing a blank on the first week of June following our return from our week in Paris and Amsterdam. It could be explained away by a lull in our quest to visit every scrap of British soil but there were things still going on. The big news that week was that my grandparents were back for their second visit. Trouble was, we didn't see them so much this time round. I recall them showing up at our place on the Sunday, we chatted with them for a while and then my mum and dad took them up to the north part of Essex to see some relations. We would see them on an occasional basis over the next three weeks but it wasn't quite the same as their October visit.

The following Saturday we were back on the road for a day trip to Bath. It had been a while since we'd checked out a new city or town in England and my parents couldn't have chosen a better place. I wasn't in much of a mood at first and prefered to spend the day happily in front of the telly, however, and this would remain a blot on my memories of our last few weeks in Britain. The drive was long which did little to arouse my interest but the destination was well worth all the time and reluctance. The Roman baths were fascinating and not so big that I eventually grew tired of them. From there, we moved on to a short Avon river tour before winding down the afternoon in the sleepy environs of Burnham-on-Crouch. A day, then, of water: the slime-green baths were cool but by the time we were sitting by a glorified brook in a slow moving village I was done with all this and ready to head home.

This particular day trip seemed to take its toll as I recall arguments on the way back and soon after we got home. Maybe it was a combination of things that began to do us in: the small house, the cramped car, the constant traveling. It began to feel like this year away needed to wrap itself up. We'd all just had enough. (Though, again, not so much for me: I just wanted to spend my weekends watching the telly, listening to music and having some fun outside - but I was more than happy to do so in England)

The doorbell rang just as we were finishing dinner. Some local kids were at our door asking if I could come out. I didn't especially want to join them but Dad prodded me and I was soon outside kicking a football around with two boys and a girl I'd never spoken to. I'd seen them many times and they were among the urchins who stared at us the previous August when we wearily moved into our place at 44 Mellow Purgess. (During that interregnum prior to school starting it seemed like I saw them out of the corner of my eye virtually every day) Maybe they'd been plotting a course of action to strike up a conversation with me for months. Maybe they'd been knocking at our orange-coloured front door during every weekend and holiday in which we happened to be away. Or maybe they just decided that ten months' silence was more than sufficient and that they should finally break the ice - and, indeed they figured I was not about to do so.

So there I was on the field behind our place playing football and chatting with the local kids. Doing what I wanted to be doing on weekends. In England, where I wanted to be.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Sweet Child o' Mine
older Paul's retro pick: Back to Life

28 May 1989: Waar Niemand Bij Stilstaat

1. Gerry Marsden, Paul McCartney, Holly Johnson & The Christians: Ferry Cross the Mersey
2. Natalie Cole: Miss You Like Crazy
3. Lynne Hamilton: On the Inside
4. Kylie Minogue: Hand on Your Heart
5. Neneh Cherry: Manchild
6. London Boys: Requiem
7. Donna Summer: I Don't Wanna Get Hurt
8. Edelweiss: Bring Me Edelweiss
9. Bobby Brown: Every Little Step
10. Madonna: Express Yourself
11. Cappella: Helyom Halib (Acid Acid Acid)
12. Roxette: The Look
13. Tone Loc: Funky Cold Medina / On Fire
14. Guns 'N Roses: Sweet Child o' Mine [remix]
15. Sam Brown: Can I Get a Witness?
16. Deacon Blue: Fergus Sings the Blues
17. Chaka Khan: I'm Every Woman '89
18. Queen: I Want It All
19. Sinitta: Right Back Where We Started From
20. Double Trouble & The Rebel MC: Just Keep Rockin'
21. Stefan Dennis: Don't It Make You Feel Good
22. Cyndi Lauper: I Drove All Night
23. W.A.S.P.: The Real Me
24. Fuzzbox: Pink Sunshine
25. D Mob featuring LRS: It Is Time to Get Funky
26. Debbie Gibson: Electric Youth
27. The Bangles: Eternal Flame
28. Robert Palmer: Change His Ways
29. Paul McCartney: My Brave Face
30. Paula Abdul: Forever Your Girl
31. Midnight Oil: Beds Are Burning
32. ABC: One Better World
33. The Jacksons: Nothin' (That Compares 2 U)
34. Tom Petty: I Won't Back Down
35. The Beautiful South: Song for Whoever
36. Fields of Nephilim: Psychonaut
37. Stevie Nicks: Rooms on Fire
38. Holly Johnson: Americanos
39. Vixen: Love Made Me
40. The Beatmasters with Merlin: Who's in the House?

~~~~~

Pet Shop Boys, Deacon Blue, The Wonder Stuff: we've so far encountered on this blog groups that would make up the backbone of my taste in music as I entered my awkward teen years. There's a nice symmetry to this triumvirate: the Pet Shops I liked a bit before we came to the UK, the Deacs I got into while we were there and the Stuffies would have to wait until I was fourteen and ready for them. Only one major group was left though they don't fit in with the above - then again, when your favourite groups are a camp synth-pop duo, a Scots bar band and a pack of mouthy Brummies, how could one be expected to fit in? 

The Beautiful South enter this story in a different situation than the other members of this quartet. Whereas the Pet Shop Boys/Dusty Springfield duet What Have I Done to Deserve This? was a big a favourite of mine back in the autumn of '87 and Deacon Blue's Real Gone Kid became the song I could never stop singing along with and The Wonder Stuff's Caught in My Shadow was the soundtrack for my teenage angst, my first impressions of The Beautiful South and their hit Song for Whoever were not favourable. One factor was that the Hull quintet seemed mean, looking very much like those thuggish youths who taunted me outside Laindon Station for wearing a Spurs scarf: even the most trivial indiscretion would set this sort off. Around this time there were reports of ugly confrontations with fans at gigs who seemingly hadn't got over the demise of forerunner group The Housemartins - and this only added to my dubious view of them.

Song for Whoever was itself pretty nasty and hateful. Probably my first exposure to a knowing irony - a redundancy of sorts, I know, but I think it's worth distinguishing between irony that I was aware of and irony that escaped me - and I wasn't terribly impressed. It was clear there was a joke going on in there, it just wasn't terribly funny. I've since come round to it though only up to a point. I'm glad they wrote and recorded it, the tune is nice enough and it works as a statement of intent: whispers that they were the "Pet Shop Boys you can't dance to" were likely being uttered right from the start. Still, it doesn't come close to their best work - I'm Your no.1 Fan is an especially wonderful number of their's and ought to be recognized as an In My Life for Generation X - and, as such, I can't bring myself to anoint it as my weekly retro pick. Besides which, Neneh Cherry and Guns 'N Roses are just too damn strong.

All this is moot during the final week of May '89 because our half-term trip to France and Holland meant we were on a brief chart embargo. We didn't hear Bruno Brookes' Sunday night Top 40 rundown on Radio 1 nor did we get the chance to tune in to Top of the Pops that Thursday - it was as if the charts were on hold that week. We just had to make due with visiting Paris and Amsterdam.

I tend to thumb my nose at people who try to avoid touristy spots. Sure, it's cool to take in some less renowned areas of a famous city but so too is checking out the so-called tourist traps. I've spent enough time in Bangkok to know that a tour of the Grand Palace or the Jim Thompson House is just as pleasant as aimlessly wandering around a quiet neighbourhood or crouching on a milk crate to tuck in to a plate of basil chili rice. Still, I can kind of see their point when it comes to Paris. Our second morning in the French capital was a Monday and we left our hotel just as everyone else was heading to school or work - and I enjoyed passing by all this bustle. We seemed to be soaking in the local culture everywhere we went: open-air cafes, posters shilling French films and bathroom products, working class urchins blowing showers of snot from their nostrils: yeah, Paris had it all. What it seemed to lack was destinations that were equally worthwhile. The Louve was crowded and everyone was there to catch a glimpse of a painting that isn't even very good, Notre-Dame might have been impressive if not for the fact that I had no interest whatsoever in taking in another damn church and the city parks were all devoid of even a solitary blade of grass. Only the Eiffel Tower proved well worth a visit, especially since we were there at dusk and my dad and I descended most of its stairs.

I've always looked back at our four day sojourn in Paris as something I was a little too young for but now I realise that there just wasn't enough time to get all the sight seeing out of our systems allowing us to better appreciate the lovely city. But then, that's only something I've learned to appreciate as I've grown older and travelled around Asia. So maybe I was too young for Paris all along.

From there we were off to Amsterdam by train. Having seen a very lengthy slide show of photos from my grandparents' visit to the Netherlands in 1984, I was expecting to see nothing but canals. It was, therefore, a surprise to be greeted by an endless stream of bicycles almost as soon as we alighted. I was quickly smitten and I hadn't found a city I took to so immediately since our trip to Edinburgh the previous October. The Dutch city seemed better at blending its tourist traps with the local flavours. (Amsterdam was also a city that surprised us. Everyone seemed to speak flawless English ("better than the English," as my dad later remarked), they all seemed to enjoy pouring mayonnaise all over their chips and we only witnessed one gentleman using the canals as a toilet)

As opposed to Paris, however, it's not the sort of place that I feel like I was too young for. I didn't scarf down a plate of hash brownies nor did I explore the notorious Red Light District and I didn't later wish I'd been an unwashed hippie backpacker indulging in such Dutch delights. Instead, I was won over by the superb crepes and the city's relaxed vibe. It seemed like a cool place for a twelve-year-old.

We returned to England on the Saturday for a long ferry journey to Harwich before taking a train into London's Liverpool St. Station only to double back from Fenchurch St. back to Laindon. It was during this final leg that my dad discovered that he didn't have his keys - he must have left them back in our hotel in Amsterdam, he reckoned - and we were locked out of our house. Now, normally we might have welcomed the chance to not have to have gone inside our inhospitable, uncomfortable abode but we were all beat from the long day and it was getting late. My parents were thus forced to knock on the door of our neighbours who kindly invited us to relax in their living room as my dad and the bloke who lived there plotted a strategy for getting in. Happily, our miserable home provided the in we needed: one of the bedroom windows had proved impossible to close which allowed my dad the chance to climb up and sneak in. Breaking in to the home we didn't want to live in: this is what we were reduced to.

~~~~~

young Paul's favourite: Sweet Child o' Mine

older Paul's retro pick: Manchild

21 May 1989: Coffee and Toast, You're Back from the Dead

1. Gerry Marsden, Paul McCartney, Holly Johnson & The Christians: Ferry Cross the Mersey
2. Kylie Minogue: Hand on Your Heart
3. Natalie Cole: Miss You Like Crazy
4. London Boys: Requiem
5. Edelweiss: Bring Me Edelweiss
6. Bobby Brown: Every Little Step
7. Roxette: The Look
8. Neneh Cherry: Manchild
9. Queen: I Want It All
10. Chaka Khan: I'm Every Woman '89
11. The Bangles: Eternal Flame
12. Cappella: Helyom Halib (Acid Acid Acid)
13. Lynne Hamilton: On the Inside
14. Deacon Blue: Fergus Sings the Blues
15. Debbie Gibson: Electric Youth
16. Stefan Dennis: Don't It Make You Feel Good
17. Midnight Oil: Beds Are Burning
18. Paul McCartney: My Brave Face
19. Donna Summer: I Don't Wanna Get Hurt
20. Transvision Vamp: Baby I Don't Care
21. Sam Brown: Can I Get a Witness?
22. Stevie Nicks: Rooms on Fire
23. Hue & Cry: Violently
24. Holly Johnson: Americanos
25. The Beatmasters with Merlin: Who's in the House?
26. Tone Loc: Funky Cold Medina / On Fire
27. W.A.S.P.: The Real Me
28. Simply Red: If You Don't Know Me by Now
29. Shakin' Stevens: Love Attack
30. Poison: Your Mama Don't Dance
31. Robert Palmer: Change His Ways
32. Yazz: Where Has All the Love Gone
33. Fuzzbox: Pink Sunshine
34. Bon Jovi: I'll Be There for You
35. Fields of the Nephilim: Psychonaut
36. Cyndi Lauper: I Drove All Night
37. The Jacksons: Nothin' (That Compares 2 U)
38. Double Trouble & The Rebel MC: Just Keep Rockin'
39. Public Image Limited: Disappointed
40. ABC: One Better World

~~~~~

I've been down on the charts recently - and with good reason - but I feel distinctly more well-disposed to the listings this week. It feels like a turnover is slowly taking place as the Top 40 begins to right itself. There are still more than enough duff tracks filling space - Lynne Hamilton's On the Inside is an especially rotten culprit - but some of the new entries and climbers have given me sufficient hope. In any event, having just turned forty, I'm just doing whatever I can to stay positive.

Leading the charge is Neneh Cherry's Manchild. The follow-up to her smash Buffalo Stance, it was a mild let down at the time when a lot of people wanted more of the same; a track I quite liked but failed to be bowled over by. It's also a jarring number, its blissed out, proto-trip hop vibes clashing with a burst of furious mid-song rapping. In retrospect, however, Cherry's toasting actually pushes it from good to great and it's a healthy reminder of what an excellent all-round vocalist she was (and probably still is). Far from being a decent follow-up to a classic, Manchild is a huge step forward from Buffalo Stance but one she couldn't manage to better; even the powerful 7 Seconds with Youssou N'Dour wasn't in its league. 

Speaking of follow-ups that I was initially a bit disappointed by, Fuzzbox's Pink Sunshine made its chart debut this week. The Birmingham foursome - previously known as We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It from their punk/indie period - caught my attention with International Rescue, a hook-heavy absurdist romp replete with a terrific video paying homage to Barbarella and The Thunderbirds. Its follow-up doesn't capture the imagination but Pink Sunshine was equally catchy (both have those addictive, ear-wormy choruses that deftly manage to sound great while failing to grate), spirited and packed to the brim with nonsense lyrics. At a time when many stars were going to increasing lengths to revive the sixities, Fuzzbox pulled off their own pseudo-psychedelic hit without sacrificing the demands of current pop. Strange, then, that this was almost the end of their chart ride: I didn't hear from them again until a couple years later when Simon Evans played one of their earlier punk videos on Much Music's City Limits, bitterly dismissing their subsequent work as a commercial sellout. Typical indie purists.

A lot of memories of this year seem to centre around things I heard about but didn't witness. This could apply as much to where we were as it did to where we weren't. I mentioned several months ago about how my favourite hockey team, the Calgary Flames, were having a fantastically good season and it was about to culminate during this week in May. In this pre-internet/skype world, it could be difficult to follow a sport that that no one else gave a damn about and the news we received about the Flames' progress was scattered. The Independent did carry ice hockey scores on occasion but the many victories that Calgary racked up meant little without league standings to provide perspective.

But we knew they were now in the Stanley Cup Final against Montreal. My friends could only put up with a smattering of hockey talk but, luckily, there just so happened to be another Canadian first year student attending Mayflower with me and he, Owen, got my daily feed of updates/thoughts. As the best four-games-out-of-seven series progressed, long distance phone calls began to increase. The Flames were up three games to two with game six - for us - in the early hours of the 26th and some family friends had promised to call if they were triumphant. Apparently they were and they did, although I wouldn't know myself having slept through the numerous calls from home that we received. I had to settle for finding out the next morning. I was elated and Owen and my non-hockey watching, non-Canadian friends could see it on my face before I'd even said a word.

Mocking sports fandom, Jerry Seinfeld once observed that people will say "We won! We won!" when it should be "no, they won, you watched". In this instance, however, I didn't even watch. I did watch, however, a year later when they got bounced out of the playoffs promptly by a vastly inferior team - and, then, a year later when the same damn thing happened. (And so into Flames fan oblivion) Fast forward to 2004 and I was trying my hand at English teaching in Indonesia just as Calgary was at last making a return trip to the Finals. Just my bloody luck. (Then again, it's only sports. I had always wanted to see Canada win gold in hockey in the Winter Olympics. Then, in 2002, they finally did it and it was the ultimate anticlimax; maybe I was better off when I just dreamed of my team winning)

The day after the Flames snagged their first - and still only - Cup was a Friday which also happened to be the final games of the old English First Division season - and the key match between Arsenal and Liverpool was going to decide who would be champions. This, too, was something I knew about but didn't bother tuning in for. (It didn't even occur to me that it could've acted as a surrogate match to make up for missing the Stanley Cup Finals) Liverpool seemed destined for victory, the Hillsborough tragedy still very much on the minds of the nation, for once rendering the usually despised Reds into a sentimental favourite among many. But the football gods weren't having any of it as Arsenal won in the dying seconds of the game. It's the sort of thing I wish I could recount in vivid detail but I was too busy listening to music to concern myself with football.

It was now time for the third and final half-term break. We took in Scotland back in October and then followed it up with a short jaunt to Dublin in February and now we were off to Paris and Amsterdam for our first trip to the Continent. Saturday was all about getting there. We made our way by train and tube to Victoria Station where it seemed like we waited an awfully long time for our train to Dover. Actually, everything seemed to take a long time: the train from London was slow, the ferry to Calais was slow and our train to Paris for the final leg of the journey was so slow that we were stopped completely for an hour or two. When we finally pulled into Guerre du nord it was late and little of Paris could yet make an impression. We trudged with our suitcases for several blocks and picked up omlettes on baguettes for a late-night bite to eat before bed. Paris would have to wait until morning.

~~~~~
young Paul's favourite: Fergus Sings the Blues
older Paul's retro pick: Manchild