Seven thousand

Hit the decs.

Listening to Radio 1 these days, which I don’t, with all the auto-tuned dance music and the suchlike, its odd to think that the station began life in 1967 with four hours output a week given over to children.

Junior Choice, for that was its name, broadcast Saturday and Sunday mornings, and was all Hello Mudder, Hello Fadder, the Laughing Policeman, and the toppermost poppermost poptastic hits of the day.

In our house, the radio was always on, and it was Radio 1 that would be burbling out. So, my choice for song of the 1960s was one that was played heavily on Junior Choice, though it wasn’t until later that I understood how sad the story it told was.

The plan had been to write and record a whole opera for teenagers. Or children, and the first fruits was Keith West’s “Excerpt from a Teenage Opera”, aka Grocer Jack. It’s a pit proto=prog, as Steve Howe from Yes played guitar on it, and became a hit after John Peel played it. I guess Junior Choice played it not only because it was requested, but because it had children singing on which made it a children’s record.

Possibly.

I chose it as my record of the 60s when I was on Radio 6’s “Hit the Decs” (decades) for the 1960s.

For the 1970s, a song I have written about before:

Is this real life, or is it just fantasy, Caught in a landslide, No escape from reality.

I was the music correspondent for my junior school class from 1972 to 1976. In that I, alone, went home for lunch (or dinner, we called it dinner and the school had dinner ladies), but anyway.

On Tuesdays, I would wait until quarter to one to listen to the top five rundown on Radio 1. They would play the top five, in reverse order, then before the number 1 would do the top 40 rundown.

School restarted at one fifteen, which meant I could stay home, listen to numbers 5 to 2, the rundown and the opening bars to the number 1 and scamper back to school along Hadleigh Drive, up Woods Loke West, along the passageway that lead to the school, and be in class as the bell went.

And then along came Freddie.

We had the radio on all the time at home, Radio 1, as there was little else if you wanted to listen to pop or whatever that was modern. And, I cannot remember Bohemian Rhapsody being played before. These were the days that a record entering the charts in the top ten were almost unheard of. Slade did in 1973, I think twice, but no act had a record go straight to number 1 again until The Jam and Going Underground in 1980.

So, in at number five was Bohemian Rhapsody.

It was twice as long as all the other singles at the time, and the DJ played pretty much all of it.

I had no idea what Bohemia was, of what a rhapsody was either, for that matter. And I had to remember these two new words for as long as I got to school to tell my friends who would be waiting.

The words left my brain like a butterfly leaving a flower, I couldn't remember the title. I had to say some long record by a group I had not heard of before, Queen had gone in at number 1. I seem to remember it as summer, and running to school trying to beat the bell for start of afternoon lessons, but it was released on the last day of October, so was into November when it crashed into the charts.

By Thursday we were waiting for Top of the Pops so we could see this band play, but instead of the band miming in the studio, there was a video, the one we all know, with the three parts of the song, special effects and fancy, for then, video effects.

And it stayed around for like ages. Number 1 for nine weeks, so much so even the BBC got bored and added their own effects to the video.

And that would have been that, the song become something of a kitch classic, a guilty pleasure and would really only get played on Simon Bates' Golden Hour, rarely on other shows. And then came Mike Myers and the song took on a whole new life for a new generation.

For me, it will always remind me of that Tuesday lunchtime, looking at the clock and wishing the bloody song was over so the rest of the top 5 would be played so I could get to school without being later.

Nothing really matters, Anyone can see, Nothing really matters, Nothing really matters to me Any way the wind blows...

Since going solo in 1988 Stephen Patrick Morrissey’s stock has fallen somewhat. I always liked the music rather than he or Johnny Marr or whatever they might say in interviews. So, for me, it has been possible to separate the man from the music. Although his output in the 21st century has been pretty patchy and he, himself coming over as whiny and needy.

Going back to 1983, I think the best year for music in my lifetime, I can’t remember their first single, Hand in Gove coming out, nor hearing their sessions, and I listened to almost every John Peel show. So, when the shimmering beauty that was This Charming Man came out, it was something very new.

As were the lyrics and its literary references.

“Punctured bicycle, On a hillside, Desolate.”

Now I have just looked at the song’s wikki page, and can find no literary reference mentioned for the song, and get I am sure I remember there being one. Reading more, it is supposed to be semi-autobiographical, and the language deliberately archaic, which partly explains it, I guess.

I would go out tonight But I haven't got a stitch to wear This man said, "It's gruesome That someone so handsome should care" Ah, a jumped-up pantry boy Who never knew his place He said, "Return the ring"

But the reason for choosing it is not because an indie single became a huge hit, that had happened before to New Order among many, many others, its that The Smiths became huge stars. And Morrissey for decades inspired such devotion.

That a main singing with a fake hearing aid in one ear and a pack pocked stuffed with gladioli could become a stay, fey and wane in a field of male stars. But then Marc Almond, George Michael were stars too. So, I don’t know.

I bought the single when it came out, and my recollection does not agree with wikki, in that I bought the US remix 12 inch, and I feel sure I must have bought it before what it says was that version’s release. I only bought the remix because it was the same price as the regular seven inch and a quid cheaper than the other 12 inch version.

I bought most of their records. Some were great, others not so. And with such egos in the band, it really should have come as no surprise when the band spit up, with Marr becoming a guitar for hir, Moz becoming what it is he became and Joyce and Rourke having angered Morrissey by suing him. And in the trial the judge found that Morrissey "appeared devious, truculent and unreliable where his own interests were at stake".

Years later he appeared on Desert Island Discs, and seemed to be acting a part. Its all so bothersome, dahling, saying at one point, something along the lines of: “I’m not an island”, then pausing to add, “except romantically.”

Many bands would kill to leave something like This Charming Man, or Still Ill or Panic as a testament to their career. The Smiths had many, many more. But also Stephen Patrick Morrissey too.

Pulp had first appeared on John Peel’s show in session as early as 1981, so their overnight success, hen it came, took 14 years. For a 90s song, I guess I had to chose a Britpop song, as that term and music dominated the years from 1993 to 96 until it collapsed under the landfill Britpop bands failing to have the talent to carry the genre forward.

M’Lord, I give you Menswear.

Guilty as charged.

But for a few months, maybe even two years, Britpop soared and at time eve made it to the front pages of the mainstream press. Blur and Oasis: who would get to number one?

Blur had split up, reformed, joined a minor indie label, moved to London, signed to a new label, before signing to Island, and then releasing Babies and Lipgloss became the overnight stars they always promised not to be.

Lead singer, Jarvis Cocker had moved to London to study art at St Martins, and there the band reformed, and he also got an idea for a song: She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College That's where I Caught her eye She told me that her dad was loaded I said, in that case I'll have rum and Coca-Cola She said fine And then in thirty seconds time she said

Promoted with a state of the art video, Pulp became stars, and of all the poptastic Britpop, this is the longest lasting, as it has an air of self-deprecation to it, all so knowing. Later that year, after injury caused the Stone Roses to pull out of Glastonbury headline slot, Pulp filled in.

I wanna live like common people I wanna do whatever common people do Wanna sleep with common people I wanna sleep with common people Like you Oh what else could I do I said I'll, I'll see what I can do

I can remember the moment I last listened to Radio 1. It was a midweek morning, in the missile prep building at RAF Coltishall, and my friend, Adam, switched the radio from 1 to 2. Radio 2.

Radio Quiet.

Ken Bruce did the late morning show, chat, travel news and interesting music.

I get my love for Gram Parsons from those days, but there was another station.

Radio 6.

Radio 6 Music.

I can’t remember wen I began to listen to it, but soon after it started, and on a good day would get up just before seven, put on so I could listen to Phil Jupitus, then Gideon Coe, then Andrew Collins, Steve Lamacq. I’d be waiting to hear what was played next, lest I miss something exciting and new.

Radio 6 was the reason I didn’t look for work from returning from the Us in September 2005 until the following summer when I ran out of cash. I was writing too, but mostly listening to music and drinking whisky.

I could have chosen many different songs to illustrate this period, but Portion for Foxes came on the radio the other week, and took me right back. Back then it seemed Rilo Kiley would go on to be huge stars.

They didn’t, but left this wonderful song to remember them, and those long autumnal afternoons and evenings of 2005 when this record seemed to be on constant rotation.

There's blood in my mouth 'cause I've been biting my tongue all week I keep on talkin' trash but I never say anything And the talkin' leads to touchin' And the touchin' leads to sex And then there is no mystery left

The music industry of the 21st century bears little resemblance to the one of the century before. Charts mean nothing, physical sales of product pale beside downloads or streaming. How do we make sense of this, and when is a single a single, or a record a record?

Or even, can a band or artist create something new, a new genre and break through?

Maybe.

Public Service Broadcasting started life a a project to add a score to information films. Public information films. Of the 40s and 50s, it shouldn’t have worked, and yes, does.

The War Room EP, and actual record, lead with the track I am bringing you for the 2010s: Spitfire. It is this that catapulted the band to national and international recognition. There was nothing like it before, although acts like BAD had mixed dialogue with music before, but not these kinds of films, and with this kind of result.

The band released an album of similar tracks, before going to make a series of progtastic albums on single themes: The Race for Space, Mining and life in Berlin.

And so to the 2020s.

What I said about the previous decade. With knobs on.

One band appeared from nowhere.

Nowhere, Ile of Wight as it turned out. And with a driving drum beat, a guitar riff and a chaise longue, launched to international fame and glory.

Would you like your muffin buttered?

I have been writing blogs since 2008, two weeks before our marriage, and no sign of stopping yet. Music means less to me know, and yet its what I come back to.