This Island Life
I’ve always considered myself privileged that my teenage years virtually spanned the Sixties, because, in so many respects, it was an extraordinarily vibrant and memorable decade.
But as a nipper living on the IW, it was the music in general and The Beatles in particular, which left a lasting impression.
Almost overnight, it seemed, we went from the bland American bouffants of Bobby Vee and Johnny Tillotson to the fringe-shaking delirium of The Beatles.
In Union Lane, Ryde, under the Victoria Arcade, there was a cellar in which someone had installed a jukebox and a counter, over which they sold Coke and crisps to 15 and 16-year-olds.
I clearly recall cheese and onion flavour had just arrived in this country and was regarded as something of a delicacy. A tasty bag of crisps with no little blue twist of salt — who’d have thought?
They were the talk of the Diamond Club (as the cellar had been jazzily renamed) and the place was a Friday night focal point for kids who wanted the buzz but were too young to drink.
In the summer of 1963, The Beatles had released She Loves You. To this day it remains the definitive anthem of the sixties, as far as I’m concerned, and on that particular evening in the club we took turns to pump tanners into the jukebox as the record was played non-stop for two hours.
Then, by way of a change, I pressed the button for Jim Reeves to sing Welcome to My World (I’d always been a closet fan) and a deep and menacing silence suddenly fell over the place.
Everyone stopped jigging about and began to stare at each other in a way which went beyond accusatory and ventured towards the threatening. Who had committed this sacrilege?
I slunk away into a corner and sucked nonchalantly on my straw. Confession may be good for the soul but that evening it would almost certainly have been bad for the nose and cheekbones.
Now, after 46 years, I can stand up and confess: "It was me! And I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise!"
Each generation adopts a proprietary attitude towards its popular music. It remains with us through the years and provides the background noise to our lives, so I was delighted to receive an e-mail the other day which listed some Sixties’ hits whose titles now have to be amended to suit the baby boomer generation.
They included:
A Whiter Shade of Hair — Procol Harum
Once, Twice, Three Times to the Toilet — The Commodores
Fifty Ways to Lose Your Liver — Paul Simon
I Can’t See Clearly Now — Johnny Nash
The First Time Ever I Forgot Your Face — Roberta Flack
How Can You Mend a Broken Hip — The Bee Gees
Mrs Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Walker — Herman’s Hermits
This got Malc Lawrence and me thinking, and we came up with some of our own.
They are:
It’s My Parting and I’ll Cry if I Want To — Lesley Gore
Can’t You Hurry Love? — The Supremes
Hair’s So Fine — The Chiffons
Cataracts (sung to the tune of Zabadak) — Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch
I Love You … Because? – Jim Reeves
I Heard It Through My Audio Link — Marvin Gaye
Trains and Boats and Frames — Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas
Here, I’ve Got to Go Again — The Hollies
I Don’t Remember You — Frank Ifield
Then there were some others where the titles remain unchanged, they have just taken on a different (and more poignant) meaning for members of the 60-plus generation.
They are:
Needles and Pins — The Searchers
I Can’t Get No Satisfaction — Rolling Stones
I Could Easily Fall — Cliff Richard
Wayward Wind — Frank Ifield
I’m sure Malc and I have only scratched the surface. There must be many others and, as you loll around over Christmas with nothing to do, give it some thought and e-mail them to editor@iwcp2.demon.co.uk
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It will have come as an enormous relief to everyone of a nervous disposition that CP editor Alan Marriott declined a reader’s offer last week to pose nude for this newspaper.
There are times we should all be grateful for the non-exposure of small mercies …
However, this got Lawrence and me discussing whether we would be prepared to reveal our finely-honed superstructure for the sake of art.
Malc reminded me he, of course, had done so on many occasions during his tenure as DJ at the old La Babalu nightclub in Ryde.
Indeed, he was once cheered on by the occupants of a passing police car halfway through a naked run from the club to Westridge Cross and back at four in the morning.
He had done it for a bet (which he duly won) and as various bits of him slapped together during his jog up the home straight, it sounded like a smattering of applause growing slowly louder.
But Malc has come up with a guaranteed fund-raiser for his favourite charity, Help for Heroes.
Unless readers of the CP agree to donate modest sums to his favourite charity, he is threatening to publish a nude calendar of himself in various states of undress.
Selected shots will be published in this column at regular intervals, like the release of hostages, until the full ransom is paid.
Believe me, you ignore such a threat at your peril, so send your cheque to H4H, Unit 6, Aspire Business Centre, Ordnance Road, Tidworth, Hants, SP9 7QD or call 0300 200 1066 to make your donation — and spare us all from moments of deep suffering.
Thank you.