Necessarily juvenile reviews of hit singles, 1974-78
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Well, here it is – the closing chapter of Young Punctum . There is no more because I stopped writing it after 6 May 1978. In the following week, the industry chart was expanded from a Top 50 to a Top 75, and the chart you heard on the radio or saw on Top Of The Pops or in the racks behind the counter at Woolworth’s was also lengthened from a Top 30 to a Top 40, which latter model remains to this…
Notes on Text Nottingham Forest went out of the 1978 F.A. Cup in the sixth round, beaten 2-0 by West Bromwich Albion. The Cup was eventually won by Ipswich Town, who beat Arsenal 1-0 in the final. Still, Clough’s men still managed to come comfortably top of the First Division and just about managed to win the League Cup that season, and you cannot have said anything similar about Don Revie’s…
The most notable thing about this month was that there wasn’t much school. There was a strike of petrol tanker drivers going on that month with consequent severe fuel shortages, meaning that most schools in the Clyde Valley, including Uddingston Grammar, were too cold to keep open, hence school was out for a bit (although we were told to listen to Radio Clyde at 7:45 every morning for updates in…
Notes on Text The above-left photograph is one of Redan Place, Bayswater, London W2. At the Redan Recorders studio which used to exist in this street, Spirits Rejoice! by the Louis Moholo-Moholo Octet and In Conference by Harry Miller were recorded respectively on 24 and 27 January 1978, one day before and three days after my fourteenth birthday. The label of "If I Had Words" credits "the St…
It snowed. Note on Text I couldn't find the exact 45 mix of "As Time Goes By" on YouTube; that was a curious blend of semi-random dialogue from Casablanca fading in and out of the song like a lucid dream, and I'm not sure what appeal it had to make the top twenty over Christmas except to elderly nostalgics. 3 December DIANA ROSS: Gettin’ Ready For Love/Stone Liberty (Motown TMG 1090) So…
Notes on Text I’ve published a link to the full “Live In Trouble,” “Float On” sequence included. Those were the times and snapshots of history are not interchangeable with airbrushing history. I much preferred “Get Down Shep” myself, as did most of my classmates (“Live In Trouble” was overwhelmingly purchased by kids), but that wasn’t a hit. “Alex” was (and still is) Alex Swanson, nominally my…
It was just another of those months, October 1977, much as July 1977 had been; when there was palpable newness, a month whose every week ushered in yet another development, escorting pop in a different and more adventurous place than it had been. You could feel it – I certainly did – on the radio, in the pages of the music papers; the square had been convinced to turn oblong. It felt so good to…
This isn’t an autobiography or a memory test. Indeed I don’t really have anything to report between now and February 1978. Life ground on as tediously as I hadn’t been promised. In English class we mechanically read out Shakespeare plays, Steinbeck novels and West Side Story lyrics in the most affronted of monotones we could muster. Essay and exam marks seemed intent on cutting me down to size.…
After all I’d experienced and felt that year, I was still back at school this month with my alleged peers making sneery, bad jokes about Elvis. How I reacted is recorded in my entry on “Way Down.” Third year, it was made pretty clear from the beginning, wasn’t going to be nearly as fun as second year had been. For a start, we’d been forced to compartmentalise and choose what subjects to study for…
On 9 July, we flew off for another holiday to New York. On this occasion we stayed there only for three weeks because money was slightly short. We did more or less the same things as we had done twelve months before; apparently Dennis Potter and his wife Margaret were also in town at the same time as us, although we never knowingly saw them, and whatever cab drivers we had, I’m pretty sure Philip…
