Z is for Zager and Evans

I'm feeling a bit sad that we've got to Z - it's the end of this year's Blogging from A to Z Challenge. I suppose I should feel a sense of satisfaction that I've made it thus far. Also, and MOST importantly, it's brought me closer to the date when I am reunited with herself. Yes, I am counting the days. I hope that those of you who came to my blog because of the A to Z Challenge will continue to visit. I've certainly seen other blogs that I intend to keep reading. It's been fun and, it's early days admittedly, but I couldn't rule out doing it again.

However, that's very much for the future and the future was the main concern of the one hit that Zager and Evans had. One hit is all you need if it sticks in people's minds and In The Year 2525 definitely stuck in my youthful mind in 1969. The single reached the number one slot at the time of the first manned moon landing, how much more memorable do you need something to be? A cautionary tale of what might happen if mankind becomes too dependent on modern technology, the single still has some relevance, I guess, although where would the A to Z Challenge be without "modern technology"?

Anyway, 2525 was one of those songs that made an impression although I couldn't have necessarily told you who sang it. As a result, it was only when I was researching likely candidates for my Z posting that I came up with Zager and Evans. Sorry, guys. Thanks to Wikipedia I can tell you that Zager and Evans continued to record after releasing 2525, but with limited success. Their follow-up single, Mr Turnkey, was about a rapist who nails his own wrist to the jail wall as an act of atonement. Interesting, as we Brits say when we very often mean the complete reverse.

Also-rans: I love the thumping power of some ZZ Top singles which for some reason reminds me of Thatcherism. Mrs Thatcher rocking out to Gimme All Your Lovin' - it seems unlikely, doesn't it? Also a very honourable mention to Warren Zevon. I am always receptive to a good song, as I've said before, and he's been responsible for lots of good songs, not least Werewolves Of London. Oh, and let's not forget Frank Zappa. I'm really going to miss doing this...

Y is for Neil Young

Y is, as you'll have seen, for Neil Young, but it could just as easily be for "Ye gods, we've nearly made it". I'm running on fumes at this stage and I've struggled a little bit to come up with a Y reference that also triggers a memory.

However, sometimes a great bit of writing will just fix a song in your memory and so it is with Neil Young's After The Gold Rush. I love the song and the album of the same name.

It's one of those songs you listen to and go "Yeah, I mean, yeah, like...er...you know". And then you could reasonably go, "but what on earth is it all about?" A little trawl on the internet will come up with a variety of explanations from people who also like the song, but find it leaves them a little baffled.

I have absolutely no intention of trying to come up with my version of what the song means, if, indeed, it means anything. Who cares? Does it matter? Sometimes liking something for those reasons you keep in your head and your heart is more than enough.

As I write this I am listening to the album and I'm torn about which song's video to include in the post, but I suppose it really can only be After The Gold Rush.

Also-rans: This is somewhat tenuous. I once met former Yes keyboard player Rick Wakeman on the Lundy supply ship, the Oldenburg. He was accompanied by his wife at that time, the former model Nina Carter. He was a nice bloke to talk to, but I was busy just trying my hardest not to stare too obviously at Nina Carter. Strangely enough it used to be possible to buy a tea towel which had on it a picture of Rick Wakeman and Nina Carter.

X is for X-Ray Spex

April, 1978, and when I should have been studying hard for my A Level exams I was doing things like going to London to join a Rock Against Racism march which ended with a splendid gig in Victoria Park, Hackney.

Performing that day were such punk luminaries as The Clash and The Tom Robinson Band as well as reggae band Steel Pulse. But the musical memory link is formed by the wonderful X-Ray Spex and their superbly raucous singer Poly Styrene. Such names were de rigueur in the world of 1970s punk.

I had already bought the single Oh Bondage Up Yours!  by X-Ray Spex and the chance to see live the creators of such a joyous two-fingers to pomposity was too good to miss. As a result, I was part of the march which took us past pubs from where National Front supporters would emerge to call us "red scum". That's all they did and I think the day passed off peaceably on the whole.

Poly Styrene died from cancer in 2011, but her unforgettable voice - and believe me once you've heard her, you won't forget - ensures that she lives on.

The sound quality isn't the best on this video, but you'll get the idea.

Just for the record, my A Level results were a disappointment although I don't think they can have been much of a surprise to anyone who knew my lacklustre approach to studying. However, I survived and I can always say I saw Poly Styrene on stage.

Also-rans: XTC: A very fleeting memory of the father of a friend of mine seeing XTC on television and being very sarcastic about them. What I particularly remember is thinking "You're not meant to like them, you're an old man". This was slightly unfair and he might actually have been younger than I am now, but our perceptions of age certainly change with time.

W is for Steve Winwood

More than 30 years ago my attempts to get my first job in newspapers were meeting little success and then I got two offers - one for a paper in the north of England and one in the South-West. I headed west ("Go West, young man" etc etc) and in the words of Robert Frost's famous poem The Road Not Taken "that has made all the difference".

It's a tempting game to play where you wonder "what if?" and it's too easy to view certain decisions as turning points, but I think my decision to head to Devon was important and much of what is most significant in my life followed directly and indirectly from that decision.

Steve Winwood fits in here because in 1980, the year I got that vital first job on a paper, his first solo single While You See A Chance was in the charts. He has had an illustrious career and played a part in many great singles, but this one remains a favourite and seems quite fitting to the way I was thinking at the time.

The video is worth watching if only for the strange antics of the two people in the gimp suits.

Also-rans: The Who and in particular their album Quadrophenia. I tried to sing like Roger Daltrey, usually after a certain amount of drink had been taken, but the truth is nobody can sing like Roger Daltrey except the man himself. A feisty legend to this day, as far as I'm concerned. Also, yes, two Also-Rans today, Andy Williams singing Can't Take My Eyes Off You. This featured in a bar scene in Michael Cimono's The Deer Hunter which is one of my favourite scenes from one of my favourite films.

V is for Vivaldi

We've got this far through the alphabet and this is the first time I've touched on classical music, which is probably a realistic reflection of my musical tastes. "I don't know much about classical music, but I know what I like."

Nearly 30 years ago I was admitted to hospital having been diagnosed with cancer. I was about to be operated on and, to be honest, I was pretty scared. Luckily for me, my oldest daughter had lent me her personal tape player - nothing as swanky as a Sony Walkman, but it did the job - and I had been given a tape of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. The music transported me away from the hospital ward.

It is a beautiful piece of music and suffers a bit these days for being so well known and so popular. It nearly breaks my heart every time I hear it used as "hold music" when I'm on the phone to some big corporation.

Ideally, I'd post the whole of the Four Seasons for you to enjoy, but it's quite a long work, certainly compared to most pop songs. Instead, and trying to think laterally, I'm going to post Silver Star by the Four Seasons. I know...some people think I just chuck this stuff out, but there's real thought goes in to it sometimes. While nothing like the Vivaldi, the song does have some joyous harmonies in it which should lift the spirits.

Also-rans: If further cheering-up is needed, try Village People's YMCA. It reminds of events such as wedding discos when everyone's had a few drinks and loses their inhibitions enough to just get out on the dance floor and have fun. Very important.

U is for The Undertones

"Teenage dreams, so hard to beat." That's from the Undertones Teenage Kicks which came out in my late teens and is just one of those perfect singles.

The late John Peel played the single twice in a row on his radio show because he liked it so much. After his death the line from the song was inscribed on his headstone. That's the sort of song it is, it has meaning and significance, but is still pure punky pop.

No specific memories to do with this great song other than it seemed to be the perfect soundtrack to my latter teenage years. I think I was just beginning to realise that going round with a face like a smacked arse and being all angst-ridden was only acceptable (but only just) from a spotty teen. The big wide world beckoned.

"Teenage dreams, so hard to beat." Oh, they are, they really are.

Enjoy the video, in fact, why not play it twice?

Also-rans: U-Roy Dread In A Babylon. A lot of punks (I wasn't really a punk, I just liked the music) were in to reggae. I sort of slavishly followed suit, but then found bits of reggae that I really liked, such as U-Roy. "We're going to light up a chalice in the palace," hmm, and then again, maybe we're not. 

T is for the Thompson Twins

The year 1984 was a special year. Forget Orwell's novel of the same name, actually don't forget it, it's a great piece of work that continues to serve as a warning to us all. However, for the purposes of this blog, put the novel to one side.

No, 1984 was special to me because it was the year I got married and also the year that I first flew. In fact, put those events in reverse order. A holiday flight to Spain and then a few weeks later back in the UK, tying the knot after which connubial bliss ensued (30 years this year).

So far, so good. The musical memory comes from the second time I flew, which was that summer in an RAF Hercules. In those days I was a newspaper reporter and my job that day was to cover the local RAF station's air day. Included in this assignment was going up in the Hercules with the RAF's parachute display team, the Falcons. No, nothing so bonkers as doing a parachute jump with them, just talk to them as they prepared for their jump and then observe them as they peeled off from the gaping ramp of the Hercules as it flew at about 12,000ft.

All well and good, we were on long harnesses so we couldn't fall out and it was quite something to see a group of men take a leap in to the wide blue yonder. But after that we were all told to sit down sharpish because the plane had to make a "tactical landing". Basically that's going from 12,000ft to the ground as swiftly as possible to get out of the way of the next flying display.

"You will experience positive and negative G," we were warned. They were right, one minute I was being crunched in to my seat, the next I was rising up against the harness holding me in place. Not a good sensation for a relatively nervous novice air passenger. We landed perfectly safely and somehow I managed to resist the urge to kiss the ground.

So where do the Thompson Twins fit in? And, by the way, I mean the 1980s New Wave group, not Tintin's detective chums although that's who they were named after. Well, before we took off in the Hercules the RAF Falcons played out on the ground the manoeuvres they would follow in their descent. It's a slightly odd spectacle on the ground and all the time they were doing that one of their team was playing a Thompson Twins' tape. Perhaps oddly for such a personally remarkable year, I have nothing by the Thompson Twins in my collection, just some wonderful memories.

Here's a bit of music to jump out of planes to.

Also-rans: Talking Heads and Once In A Lifetime. "Well, how did I get here?", a great line and always a good one to sing when things become puzzling, shall we say. Also Marquee Moon by Television. Both these fine American bands remind me that not all the best rock'n'roll begins "1...2...3...4".