I’ve said before on this blog that my descent into music obsession was a relatively gentle one.  It was sort of like boiling a frog.  One year I was making slightly more mixtapes for people than most of my other friends and then, merely twenty years later I’ve quit my job, burned my clothes and disappeared off into the depths of the Forest of Musicdale with nothing but a spear and a loincloth for protection. And it was so gradual I never even noticed it happening.

Tracing this kind of mania back to the very start is kind of tricky.  I mean, I remember liking children’s programmes, but only under duress.  Even at age four I thought I was far too grown up for that sort of thing, so if my mum ever caught me singing along or doing the actions I used to hate her for a bit.

I progressed from children’s television to liking songs which were borderline children’s songs, but nevertheless in the pop charts.  The first songs I actually remember liking at all were probably Shaddap Your Face by Joe Dolce (for obvious reasons) and Shakin’ Stevens’ This Ole House (oh fuck off, I was five).  See?  Still basically children’s songs.

I can’t remember the first actual song I really liked, although my parents could probably tell you a lot more.  Tina Turner’s 1984 definitely appealed, as did Rio by Duran Duran and We Gotta Get Out of This Place by the Animals.  There are still pretty obvious, although decreasing, links to the kind of music which would appeal to children in there; lyrics about “beware the savage claw” and lines like “we gotta get out of this place” are probably an easy enough sell to kids.

But the first time I actually remember hearing something on the radio and actively wanting to buy it was probably when I was about eight years old or so.  It was a bit of a bonding moment with my mum if I recall, as she had pretty much the same reaction the first time we heard The Reflex by Duran Duran.

I don’t remember if there was any excitement about the release date, but I do remember the anticipation when we actually brought the record home for the first time and put it on the record player.  I have no idea if there was dancing, although knowing my mum there almost certainly was on her part.  I have no idea if I even liked the album.  But it’s definitely the first time I can ever remember actively wanting to buy an album for any reason at all.

So that was where it all started: with Tina Turner and Duran Duran.  And it was years before my dad’s far more hipster-friendly music collection even got a look in.

Duran Duran – The Reflex

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Erm, really sorry that this is so very, very late, but life rather caught up with me this week.  So I never quite managed to find time to get my shit together until this evening, unfortunately.

It’s surprising how much of my time these weekly podcasts seem to take up – it can be quite hard to find an evening every single week to record these things.  What I find amazing is that I don’t run out of blather.  I don’t recall ever saying anything profound or all that intelligent either, so this little collection must represent hours and hours of inconsequential rambling.

On Friday a nice young lady in the pub asked me “Has anyone ever told you that you talk loads and loads.”  I suppose, looking back at a hundred and some podcasts the miracle is that actually the answer to that question is ‘no, not really, not that I can remember’.

Oh, and yes, that is Tina Turner and Kim Carnes you see there.  Suck it up, hipsters.

Toadcast #107 – The Tardicast

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01. The Walkmen – This Job is Killing Me (03.30)
02. Grandaddy – Hey Cowboy, the Phone’s For You (09.57)
03. Comaneci – Satisfied Girl (15.51)
04. Tina Turner – Private Dancer (17.50)
05. Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou – England (27.33)
06. Ruth Theodore – False Alarm (34.09)
07. The Waterboys – Sweet Thing (40.54)
08. Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes (48.04)
09. R.E.M. – Half a World Away (53.55)
10. Radiohead – Creep (Acoustic) (59.59)

Hannah from Modernaire rather kindly sent through this George Orwell essay which I rather like, especially the bit about the Toad (I assure you there is no such thing as a ‘common’ Toad, whatever George may think).

Maybe we should all step away from these pernicious computer machines, and go and lark about, carefree in the springtime lushness.

The excerpt was from ‘SomeThoughts on the Common Toad’ and whilst I object to his scurrilous accusations of lower class toadery which, as a species, we vigorously refute, it makes a nice read. Orwell may have been a stodgy novellist, by which I mean that his intellectual achievements as a writer outsrip the actual enjoyment of reading his fiction, but he was a truly excellent essayist. Anyone who is yet to read “The Decline of the English Murder” should do so immediately. But this is not really a literary site, so let’s leave it to George, shall we:

“Is it wicked to take a pleasure in Spring and other seasonal changes? To put it more precisely, is it politically reprehensible, while we are all groaning, or at any rate ought to be groaning, under the shackles of the capitalist system, to point out that life is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird’s song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenom¬enon which does not cost money and does not have what the editors of Left-wing newspapers call a class angle? There is no doubt that many people think so… People, so the thought runs, ought to be discontented, and it is our job to multiply our wants and not simply to increase our enjoyment of the things we have already. The other idea is that this is the age of machines and that to dislike the machine, or even to want to limit its domination, is backward-looking, reactionary and slightly ridiculous.

I have always suspected that if our economic and political problems are ever really solved, life will become simpler instead of more complex, and that the sort of pleasure one gets from finding the first primrose will loom larger than the sort of pleasure one gets from eating an ice to the tune of a Wurlitzer. I think that by retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and – to return to my first instance – toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader-worship.”

There’s not a lot of music related to Orwell that I can think of, although I assume there must be loads out there. Animal Farm and 1984 have entered into the popular imagination such that people use metaphors from these books all the time, even if they have no idea where they came from.

For Animal Farm (tenuous, these two):
Cocorosie – Animals
The Beatles – Piggies
For 1984:
Alanalda – There is Always Someone Watching
Tina Turner – 1984
David Bowie – 1984 (Live)
For Down and Out in Paris and London:
The Divine Comedy – In and Out in Paris and London
There must be some more though, surely? Help me out here people.

You are tremendously influenced by the music you hear when you’re really young, and this often means that you are cruelly brainwashed by the music your parents listen to.  My Dad was very, very high cred – Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, The Band, The Holy Modal Rounders, The Boss, early Elton John, The McGarrigles and all sorts of other brilliant stuff.  He also, in later years, brought The Pogues, The Men They Couldn’t Hang and The Waterboys into my life.

On my Mother’s side, however, lies a terrible secret: pop.  The terrifying matriarch of Toad Hall mercilessly guided and nurtured my inner pop slut, leaving the Dylan and Waits of my Dad to rub shoulders with Erasure, Depeche Mode, ABC, Eurythmics, Bronski Beat, Cyndi Lauper and *gulp* Tina Turner.   Yes, Tina Turner.

In fact, I was discussing this recently with some blog pals, and I am not entirely certain that my first three gigs ever weren’t Tina Turner gigs.  Once even with Bryan Adams.  And they wonder why we hate them.

Actually, the thing is, no matter how much you try, it’s very difficult to hate this stuff from your formative years.  Either I have absorbed these malign influences so entirely that they have become part of me, or I have always had an inner pop slut and my bloody mother just teased it out to keep me from getting too wound up in my own self-importance (a difficult and highly necessary job).

Either way, yes my first three gigs were Tina Turner, no I can’t even force myself to listen to these songs and hate them, and no Tina Turner wasn’t even the worst of it.  And Mum, if you come on this thread and even breathe the names Rick Astley, Los Lobos or Michael Bolton you’re fucking dead.

Tina Turner – I Can’t Stand the Rain
Tina Turner – Private Dancer
Tina Turner – Let’s Stay Together