Wish You Were Here

So next album up is (another) greatest hits collection, but this blog is one that I really have high hopes for. I don’t know whether my hand-picked sample of CDs is fully indicative of my Dad’s collection or whether I’ve taken a few easier options and taken certain selections because of specific tracks. Alternatively, of course, my Dad could have just been quite sensible and known that many studio albums contain a few decent tracks and then a load of filler, so chose the brutal efficiency (and money-saving) of a Greatest hits collection over individual albums. Quite what we would have made of things like Spotify had he been in the right place physically and mentally at the right time is something I’ll never know now, but I suspect he would have approved and made great use of it. The knock-on effect would have been further irritation on my Mum’s part of all of the now obsolete CDs sitting around gather dust, which may have been another additional benefit in the ease of my Dad.

Speaking of Spotify (and this is far from a plug for them… although if you’re into music and don’t use it, I think you’re missing out - however other streaming services are available) over the past 6 months or so the good lady wife and I had taken to listening to a lot more music through an Echo (courtesy of Alexa - by way of a number of generous family members back at Christmas) and find it great to get a notion of a song in our heads, and be able to just ask the proverbial genie in a bottle (not a song we’ve listened to yet, by the by) to play it for us. I made good use of this yesterday evening when I got in from work. It hadn’t been an especially good day, and a number of different things were frustrating me and so as I walked into the house and got to the kitchen, having clocked our Echo sitting on the shelf I said 5 magic words that made everything seem a bit better. “Alexa, play Pink Floyd please” (Courtesy costs nothing…) followed by several repetitions of “Alexa volume up”.

Pink Floyd is another band that always seems to have been there in the background playing throughout my childhood. They were another of my Dad’s very favourite bands and their various albums were another of those that cropped up on at least a monthly basis whenever guests were around and drink was taken. I can almost picture the grin on my Dad’s face as he would slide the CD into the drawer, close it and crank the volume up (often using the remote control, and then complaining that there wasn’t a button that took the CD off the shelf, opened the case and put it in the tray, making the ‘open/close’ button a pointless one on the remote). I don’t know whether he ever managed to see them live and in person himself, and know he never made it to their exhibition at the Victoria & Albert museum either, but did report that The Australian Pink Floyd were a very very impressive substitute when he went to see them live.

I’ve also never been lucky enough to see Pink Floyd live, and the closest I’ve been was attending an event back in early 2017 where, as a college project, a number of local students put on a show where they performed a number of Pink Floyd tracks. The event was held in a church in Lincoln (where I now live and work) and it was great. I was invited there by a friend who had a child who was performing and I was really pleased to get the opportunity to go along and experience it all. It wasn’t all that long before my Dad passed away either and I’m fairly confident that part of one of our very last telephone conversations was recounting the events of the concert to him. While he didn’t seem all that interested in what I was telling him (to be fair, he did have a lot of other stuff going on by then - so I can forgive him that) I know that had it been as little as 3 or 4 months prior to that he would have been fascinated and have really appreciated the story and the notion of me having gone along as well as appreciating him imparting some of his music tastes on to me (his ‘son and heir, as my Mum would say).

It’s also a very odd co-incidence that we’ve been having so much hot weather recently (unusual for the British Summer really) as we’ve just passed the one year anniversary of my Dad’s funeral. It was held on 19th of June 2017 at the crematorium in Aldershot near where he and my Mum lived from 1999 onwards (although I will have to be totally honest here, I did just have to Google his name and obituary to confirm that date…) and it was properly hot that day. Being at a funeral, wearing a suit (jacket and all, complete with one of my Dad’s trademark ‘loud’ ties) was the only real option, but really not ideal to be in a full suit when it’s 30+ degrees in the shade. I know that having spent much of my formative years living in places where the day on day weather was “hot and wet, 28 to 32 degrees Celsius” I should have been used to it and been able to cope better, but having been back in the UK since 1998 (20 years now… wow, where has that time gone, by the way) I’m far more comfortable being too cold than too warm. A lot of the day itself is a bit of a blur too actually, although whether that’s down to the sorrow and emotion of it all or just heat-stroke having kicked in early in the day is another matter, one thing I can really clearly remember is the music that was played. I know that I’ve mentioned this already within an earlier blog, but I was entrusted with picking the music for the funeral itself (with a lot of guidance from both my Mum and my wife, as well as indirectly from other important family members so between us and them we pulled the best ideas together). And when it came to the song to have playing as everyone filed in to the crematorium, there was only one real clear choice that stood out to me. “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd. Simply the perfect song to dedicate to my Dad at that point in time.

I think I’ve gone off on a little tangent this time, but I think we’re back on track again now. I believe I was talking about yesterday evening and me having instructed the one true ruler of our house (I think I’m fourth in the pecking order behind Alexa, Niki (my wife) and the cat these days although the chickens and guinea pigs may have something to say about that) to kindly play me some music from Pink Floyd. Now, there are a lot of songs of theirs that are well-known and many that are great and I would have happily listened to any of them really, but as if possessed by a higher power, Alexa knew just what I needed to hear. As I said, I did have to ask her to crank the volume up a few times as I couldn’t make out what song had been chosen as things sounded a bit muffled but then I heard the first 3 distinctive acoustic guitar notes from “Wish You Were Here” and the ill-feeling and malcontent of the day just faded away that little bit really. 

I don’t really know what made me pick out Pink Floyd to request either, come to think of it. Not anything I’d heard on the radio that day (or even this week) that caused an ear-worm to form for me or anything anyone had said that put the idea into my head. As my work colleagues from yesterday can attest to, the only thing on my mind after work was getting a Thai takeaway - which nearly happened, but we ended up with a Chinese due to the unique opening hours of eateries in rural Lincolnshire!) So it just came out of the air really, and who am I to argue against things that I can’t explain? Just to add one final piece to the coincidence puzzle here too, when I came to pick the next CD off our book-case to write this blog - wouldn’t you know it… “Echoes - The Best of Pink Floyd”. Some things are just meant to be, I guess. Disc 2, Track 10 couldn’t come around soon enough for me this evening really… 

So, I’ve managed to write more words in this blog than in any of the previous ones and as yet I’ve made basically no mention of the CD (nor Judith Chalmers… which given the title is quite and achievement for me I think) or any of the tracks. Anyone would think that the original concept of the blog is flawed or something. But I’m not sure that it actually is, after all it’s my blog, run under my rules (and hey, you know they can be as flexible as anything can’t they). I know that Pink Floyd will crop up again throughout this journey somewhere too and on that day in those circumstances a different memory or set of emotions will be evoked within me and we’ll see what comes of that, I’m sure I’ll be able to keep talking about them if needed. Maybe I’ll just try and hide a number of different track titles from the CD throughout the blog and send a prize (choc-ice anyone…) to the first person who finds them all. Shine on you Crazy Diamonds!

I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told...

So (after a small delay - had a busy weekend last week) the next cab off the proverbial rank is “The Simon and Garfunkel Collection” so yet another greatest hits compilation that’s found its way into my Dad’s stack of CDs. And another choice that’s interesting for a number of reasons really. Mostly, the music of (Paul) Simon and (Art) Garfunkel is something that I would tend to associate more closely with my Mum than my Dad. Back in around 1991 or so, she used to drive around the mean streets of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in a green Peugeot 504 (nicknamed the Green Goddess - which once took on a petrol tanker at a roundabout and came out of the altercation unscathed!) and within this car she had a tape deck. She didn’t have a mass of different tapes to play though - but the ones that spring to mind were a Michael Bolton album (that went ‘missing’ when she took the car in to be serviced), a compilation of songs with the word ‘Night’ in the title somewhere as tape 1 and the word ‘Love’ as tape 2, and then Simon and Garfunkel. I know I’ve mentioned before that sometimes a particular sensation takes you back to a particular place, time and mood - and for me Simon and Garfunkel’s music will always take me back to being 11 years old, boiling hot but genuinely living through some of the greatest days of my childhood and being driven around in something that looked like this.

So, the obvious next question to ask is how this all ties back in to a memory of my Dad really. And oddly enough (as many memories of my Dad too) it relates back to drinking, pubs and in this instance specifically pub quizzing. My Dad was a huge fan of a pub quiz, and took great pride in having a knack of not winning a quiz, but instead coming second (in many cases earning as good a prize as the ‘winners’ of the quiz, without gaining the added burden of having to set the next quiz). For those who know me, just imagine me being raised in an environment where having random knowledge about everything and anything would come in handy - how different would I have turned out?? 

So yes - Simon and Garfunkel and pub quizzes, their influence and impact on my childhood and their related stars all came into alignment one evening last year when I attended a charity quiz at the Pilgrim Lounge at Boston United FC’’s ground. Having persuaded/dragged my good lady wife, some colleagues from our work places and significant others along to the quiz we were presented with the usual range of round titles (Current Affairs, Sporting Numbers, TV, Film etc etc.) and having to pick the round to play our Joker on. Now, having clocked that ‘Simon and Garfunkel’ was one of the rounds I was quietly confident that, given my childhood exposure to their music that we might do okay in that round, but naturally kept schtum about this knowledge for fear of the team relying on me and us ending up with egg on our faces.

Predictably this was an error in judgement really. As it turned out, I think I managed to suss out 8 of the 10 answers required and the other team members had stabs at the other two and when it came to the answers being read out and the scoring being completed - we achieved 10 out of 10 in that round. Tragically, we instead used our Joker on one of the other rounds (may have been Sporting Numbers - which was a horror show, by the way) and (almost as though it were meant to be) I think we finished second on the quiz. Dad would definitely have been proud of that one. While we didn’t get any sort of a prize, we did avoid the awkward situation that would have been presented when faced with the expectation of ‘donating’ our winnings back to the relevant charity (as every previous winner of said quiz has done, and as announced by the compere of the evening) - for some reason the team seemed dead sent against this notion. Another fond memory of that night was the sheer rage that resulted from our table not having any luck at the raffle, and coming away empty handed. You never truly know someone until you’ve heard them cursing the nature (and the organisers) of the raffle simply because they didn’t get to win a box of choccies!

Now, on to the music (as I suppose I ought to make mention of it somewhere in this, it being the point of the blog and all that). My good lady wife is somewhat unimpressed with this one - reckoning it to sound rather dated and very much ‘of its time’. Now, I might struggle to argue against that but again, the songs put me back to a happy time for me in the early 90’s and even from that far back they are clearly ingrained in my mind now as when I worked in retail I almost constantly had the tune of “Keep the Customers Satisfied” stuck in my head. And there are some great lyrics hidden away in the songs too. Who can hear the words “Hello lamppost, what you knowing? I’ve come to watch your flowers growing” and not smile (other than my wife apparently…). And I can almost guarantee that at least some of the songs will be familiar to you - whether through knowing the original or having heard a cover of one of them (Chris Eubank is a big fan of a cover of ‘Cecilia’ that was done by Suggs from Madness by all accounts, so it’s worth checking that one out on Youtube if you can). Mrs. Robinson is another classic as well, and Bridge Over Troubled Water is an amazing piece of work. So if you’re unfamiliar with the work of Simon and Garfunkel, there are worse ways to spend an evening then going through some of their stuff and seeing what strikes a chord with you. 

Now, I realise that my timing of this blog may be deemed a little bit poor - what with it being father’s day and all that, but I haven’t put this one up to bring people down or make people feel bad for celebrating fathers. In many respects this is my way of doing the same thing. While during much of this life I know that my Dad enjoyed having some obscure knowledge and taking the chance to show it off a bit in a social environment, towards the end one fo the things that he did lose fairly early on after his diagnosis and treatment began was some of his sharpness and some of his memory recall too. But even before that, I picked up on the odd time that he’d slip up - but I suppose I just put it down to old age rather than actually suspecting that anything else untoward was going on up there for him. But undeterred I do try and keep up the family name and try and attend pub quizzes regularly and often think of my Dad when taking part - but always try and not take it too seriously. It’s all just a bit of fun in the end, right? 

To my Father, this rendering of his idea.

Okay, with all due respect to my previous blog and to the work of Cat Stevens, this CD is the first of my Dad’s collection where there’s a real strong connection and association that I hold between the music and my Dad. It’s interesting to me that in all the times I’ve listened to it before now, and all the times that I’ve pored over the CD inlay booklet that comes with it, that I’ve never seen the dedication held within it. “To my Father, this rendering of his idea” is subtly tucked away on the inside cover of the booklet and having not noticed it in all (at a guess) 28-ish years of my being aware of this CD it seems suddenly very poignant that I’ve now seen it while undertaking this project.

So, for those of you who didn’t suss out my little clue at the end of the last blog, and for those of you who haven’t clocked the cover art either - I’m going to spend a little bit of time talking about Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. In terms of finding connections back to my Dad, this one was an easy selection to make. It’s one of a handful of pieces of music that I can always remember being there, being played on any occasion as deemed appropriate (or otherwise) by my Dad and usually played at too high a volume as well. My Mum tells a story of one of my sister’s school friends coming to visit us, and my Dad (possibly under the influence of one or two cans of Anchor Beer (the local brew in Malaysia)) putting this on, to leave Candace (I think her name was) absolutely bewildered and “shit-scared”. And that sums my Dad up to a T really - an appreciator of the things that he liked and enjoyed and willing to share them with anyone, regardless of the circumstances or their reaction to it. 

The general story of War of the Worlds has been retold in many different ways to varying levels of success. H G. Wells wrote the original book on which the variations are based back in the late 1800’s and (in)famously Orson Wells (no relation…apparently) did a radio broadcast in the USA in 1938 retelling the story that was reportedly so realistic that widespread panic broke out. Just imagine Americans over-reacting to something, eh? Would never happen these days in the modern era of social media and whatnot, would it? Equally famous (but a lot worse) was the Tom Cruise film that came out in 2005. Not even Morgan Freeman doing the voice-over could save that one apparently. Equally, Jeff Wayne himself re-imagined parts of the show and has done a couple of live tours in the past 10 years or so. While many of the original cast are no longer around, they’ve found some adequate replacements in general and some very creative ways to replace elements of the cast. I also attended a live show in 2005 or 2006 which was quite the experience.

The album itself takes the form of a fairly conventional ‘musical’ and uses the facility of a narrator (voiced by Richard Burton) to move the story along and bridge the gaps between the different tracks that tell the story. To give a broad summary of the actual story, aliens (well, martians - even though the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one) descend on Earth, take over and a war between the humans and the martians breaks out. Although one of the tracks taken from it was released as a single (“Forever Autumn” by Justin Hayward… but more on him later), you really do have to just set aside a good couple of hours and listen to this one from end to end to fully appreciate its majesty and to take in the full impact of the story. 

There was some amazing talent involved in producing the album as well. Not only Jeff Wayne himself composing the music and his mother Doreen adapting the original book into the story told (the aforementioned Justin Hayward aside), but when you add in Phil Lynott (of Thin Lizzy fame, another favourite band of mine and my Dad’s), David Essex and Julie Covington (who came from a more traditional ‘musical’ background) everything just sort of clicks and the result is (in case it wasn’t already clear) one of my very favourite things to listen to now. To anyone who says that musicals aren’t cool, aren’t their thing and are somewhat pretentious, I would say that a single listen to this one would smash those perceptions.

For me though, Richard Burton is the real star of this show. While it seems a bit of a disservice to a piece of music to heap the largest praise on someone who ‘only’ narrates the story, he really is the glue that holds everything together. From his opening monologue (which still sends tingles down my spine whenever I hear it) through to his move from narrator to character when interacting with other individuals within the story it’s just an incredible piece of work. Hard to believe that someone simply reading words from a piece of paper could overshadow all of the other musical talent around him, but he does it with ease. 

Now Justin Hayward has cropped up a couple of times in this blog already, and I’ve sort of got to take a bit of an aside here. Again, it all comes back to a memory of my Dad. Justin Hayward was a member of the Moody Blues (and I’m sure there’ll be some of their stuff hidden away in his collection somewhere, so we’ll get to them when the time comes) and for whatever reason my Dad was (potentially just in jest…?) never really a fan of his. I remember sitting watching a video of a Moody Blues concert (potentially “A Night at Red Rocks”) with my parents and my sister, picking up on my Dad not liking Justin Hayward and taking great glee in joining in with berating him (Justin Hayward - not my Dad). For some reason I recall one of the other band members playing one of those guitars with two necks and thinking it was hilarious to point out that the rest of the band obviously had to work double-duty to cover for Justin’s ineptitude and overall lack of talent. Some might say that my humour hasn’t improved in the time since then either, come of think of it.

Anyway, I digress… For me this album is simply something everyone should listen to at least once a year. I’d make it part of the National Curruculum, to be honest. I know that some people out there will feel this is excessive, that the album is flawed and that the second CD/disc/part is a lot weaker than the first - but there is still some great stuff on there. Anything where Phil Lynott plays the part of a Parson who has been driven mad through the events unfolding around him can’t be bad really. So I really can’t recommend this one enough. I’d imagine (or hope, at least) that most people of my generation have encountered it through relatives of my Dad’s generation. And I can easily see that in the future that it will in turn be passed on and down the line or at the very least I hope that it will.