Friday 22 February 2008

A Morning Quickie

Pretending Life Is Like A Song hits 2 years old. My meant to be brief but waffled on for hours comment is probably worth saving in these pages too. Cheers Crash!


"Happy early birthday to your blog!

I've actually been around these blogs that I've been commenting on for a while; Lee's old 'number one songs in heaven' was the first blog that I ever read. I was searching for Respond Records in the hope that some of those old Weller proteges were available on CD somewhere and Lee had posted The Questions 'Price You Pay'.

From there I bounced through the links he posted to other blogs, and a whole new world opened up to me, the world of the mp3 blog. It's part mix-tape and part second hand record shop: if Nick Hornby hadn't got a publishing deal this is where he would be.

And thanks to yourself and that post yesterday I finally took the plunge to join in.

So thanks; a single comment made me think about my own voice and how to use it. A small thing, but after nearly 40 years it's nice that life can still throw up brand new experiences.

And what can I say about 'My Ever Changing Moods'? I love The Style Council. I didn't really get The Jam until Beat Surrender, and that was mostly because of Tracie, another one of my teenage crushes.

Weller looked like a kid from school Danny, who came from a really rough family that lived on my estate. Arson, GBH, drugs, burglary all by the age of 16. He was scary. So I couldn't get into The Jam without thinking about Danny.

But by the time Weller started The Style Council I was old enough to see past that. And he was writing such beautiful songs. (I suspect High Land, Hard Rain was on Weller's turntable at the time - listen to Pillar To Post and then put on Shout To The Top). My Ever Changing Moods came out as a single around the same time I turned 15, and that sense of melancholy pretty much defined the rest of my teens (and quite possibly the rest of my life!).

Lyrically Weller was at his peak for me around then; some of those songs were the perfect soundtrack to teenage unrequited love!"

3 comments:

dickvandyke said...

Hey Simon

Not sure if you're aware of the great work at http://vinyldistrict.blogspot.com/ but Weller's smalls get an airing from some passionate friends this week.

Simon said...

yeah, I saw that; Weller, Costello, Roddy Frame all in one week. Old singer songwriters never die; they just go blogging!

ally. said...

it's still the single version for me even though that ballady lp one is mighty fine. i went to see the jam lots and they were the first band that got lost to me by the horrid lads that claimed them as there own. we nearly got beaten up at a gig in blackpool around the gift lp time and the whole atmosphere had changed. i often wonder if that was one of the reasons he packed it in and deliberately alienated a lot of those fans?