It's a long time since we had a feature that invited contributions on here and those that did once happen have fallen somewhat by the wayside.
But, by way of bringing not only the new computer but also this website back to life, why not let me know, with any associated story and it might be possible to make something out of it. Although it is true to say that I'm so glad to have found my way back into my own website that I'll post anything, to prove that I can use this computer and I'm not going to bed until I have done.
Two examples I know of from the office where I work are Wishing Well by Free, which is quite acceptable, but then The Bump by Kenny, which even my taste for the potency of cheap music does not allow.
My own story is that it was Mozart, in the version by Waldo de los Rios that reached about no.5 in the hit parade in 1971. And it was also the second record that I bought because I went to France with Junior School and saw a 7 inch record with six more pieces listed on the cover. But I wasn't to know that those were the tracks on the album, on an advert for it, rather than pieces somehow crammed onto those 7 inches of vinyl. But I got the album soon after.
Otherwise, the first pop song I bought, for 45p, was Meet Me on the Corner by Lindisfarne, written by Rod Clements. I heard it again the other week and wondered why it had taken me 44 years to realize what it might really be about.
I've been reading Stuart Maconie's book , The People's Songs, in which he reveals that The Hollies' Carrie Ann is actually about Marianne Faithful and then goes on to explain the circumstances of the story that had hidden in broad daylight for three decades.
Meet Me on the Corner is a blissful nursery rhyme that disguises the fact that it is the same as Lou Reed's Waiting for the Man, and on the same subject.
I had the opportunity to speak to Rod several years ago and all I could do was say gormless things. I wish I could have asked him about that belated insight now.
David Green
- David Green (Books) is the imprint under which I published booklets of my own poems. The original allocation of ISBN numbers is used up now, though. The 'Collected Poems' are now available as a pdf. The website is now what it has become, often more about music than books and not so often about poems. It will be about whatever suggests itself.