Being a bit bored during a spell of crap weather (the spell lasting all of this summer), I thought I’d listen to some of the old songs that have entertained me for the last forty years or so – not counting my school days, where it was mostly Julie Andrews musicals I liked….. Actually, that’s not quite true – one LP I did buy was by the Seekers – the original seekers, not the New Seekers. The song I remember most from that was The Carnival is Over, sung by Judith Durham, who had (and has) a really stunning voice. I was into nostalgia even at 16, before I actually had anything to be nostalgic about. I also quite vividly remember Downtown, by Petula Clark. This was actually played in one of my school assemblies, for some reason which I’ve completely forgotten (as, indeed, I’ve tried to do with everything that happened at school).
I also used to watch the Monkees TV series when I was a kid – anarchic, funny, and great music. The Monkees got a lot of criticism, but actually, some of their songs were very good, and have stood the test of time. One I really liked was I’m a believer, released in 1966 (when I was 14) and composed by Neil Diamond. They also did Daydream believer, with Davy Jones – now dead – singing.
It was only in the sixth form that I really started to have a few friends, and, possibly, become a more interesting person (or a person of more interest to other people, which is a slightly different thing). At 16, I hitched alone through Germany and France for three weeks, which was a little strange since I hadn’t even been on holiday on my own before – and even stranger that my parents let me, but I think that was because some friends of theirs took me across the Channel on the start of their holiday, and so my parents just assumed I would stay with them the whole time. As it was, I got them to drop me at an autobahn slip road in the south of Germany, and started hitching for the first time in my life. Some 44 years later, I still regularly hitch.
Coming back from that holiday, I made a couple of slightly older friends in the sixth, AK and AH – both had the first name of Alan – and we started going to Eagley Folk Club each week, which was where I first heard Ralph McTell’s song, Streets of London. Can’t remember who played it at Eagley, but I heard him sing it himself years later.
We also had a school review, put on by the sixth form, which I still remember – not least because a) I wasn’t in it, and b) I was really impressed by – and jealous of – the people who were in it. The highlight was a cover of a Marmalade song, written by the Beatles – Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. Of course, there is no recording of the school review, but this is The Marmalade singing it it.
Another song of that time was Peter Sarstedt’s Where do you go to (my lovely). Another nostalgia song really, even though I was only 17 at that point. But I had just got back from my hitching trip (and finally got a girlfriend, who became my first wife) and, with its references to foreign places, it appealed to my love of travel. Also, of course, it was about someone who had had a great relationship, which had failed (much like me in the rest of my life…) and that seemed pretty romantic at the time – and still does really.
A similar song – in that it had a theme of foreign countries – is California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and Papas. However, I think that the version I first heard was by the Seekers – that version is here.
