You have to forgive me if I keep on making the same disclaimer again and again in this series of essays: that I am in no way trying to list ‘100 top tunes’ from the history of song, but rather am sharing my six decade plus autobiography in this rather piecemeal form, where songs have not only intersected with my life in its various stages, but in some ways (some of them at least) have come to ‘represent’ those stages in my memory. I suspect I’m not unique in this: most of us have a sort of soundtrack to our lives!
This choice maybe interweaves a couple of strands. I don’t know, let’s see. The actual memory is a significant occasion I have alluded to in at least one other of these essays, as far as I can remember: summer 1969, when I was given the opportunity of a three week ‘summer school’ (a taster of university life) at Balliol College, Oxford. Significant in lots of ways – eg the Moon landing took place while I was there; I also had my 16th birthday there – my sister Judy came to visit me while I was there and gave me my birthday present –my first guitar (which I had a kind of hinted at/possibly requested… in the hope that I could learn to play stuff like ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ and ‘I will’ from the Beatles’ White album) . It was interesting: and if I were given to regrets, which I’m not, generally, I might wistfully feel that perhaps I could have responded to the strong hints that those who attended the summer school would be favourably looked upon if they were to apply to Oxford as their university of choice. To be honest , reader, even after this experience, it really never seemed a realistic option for me. I didn’t feel clever enough; Swansea Uni was appropriate and fine.’
Back to the summer school and the song. I was a fairly timid sort of 15/16 year old – very young for my years, physically and emotionally, and not really particularly adventurous. I can’t remember feeling especially homesick or disorientated, but I’m guessing that I might have been a bit more hesitant and withdrawn than some of the other boys who had been chosen for this taster experience. But I like to think I was also fairly alert and open to stuff: I certainly soaked up all the new literature choices they threw at us – Hemingway, Kafka, Evelyn Waugh…hey, and they even took us to Stratford on Avon (my first time, folks!) to see ‘The Winter’s Tale’ with the young actress Judi Dench (interesting voice, I thought) playing the role of Perdita. So yes, I was a bit of a sponge. Perhaps we all are at that age.
I had a transistor radio in my room of course; in those days I don’t remember life without a transistor radio, especially since Radio 1 had been invented. It was the background to mornings and nights. On one particular morning, when I rose ready to join the other guys in the refectory (‘refectory!’ –another new word!), I heard this song on the radio. I know I’ve spoken before about the power of particularly good ‘morning songs’ – but this one was indeed for me, on that occasion, one of those that suddenly puts a zing of completely unexpected optimism into your day, like a shaft of sunlight taking you unawares and lifting the spirit beyond imagining: so much so that the memory has stayed with me for, as you can see, a good half century!
I knew of Georgie Fame, of course; he’d had a well deserved top 10 hit with ‘Yeah Yeah’; and there was a warm huskiness to his voice, and a slightly unorthodox jazziness (not that I could have identified ‘jazz’ as such, then, I suppose!) to his style that I found pleasing. But I wouldn’t have said that I was a fan who hung upon his every release! It was just – and isn’t this often the way it happens, people? – the serendipitous convergence of a particular context and a particular sound, and it was beautiful! I probably didn’t even catch all the lyrics properly (just as well maybe!), just got a sense of that ‘morning’ newness. Some of the lyrics sound odd to me now : ‘I’ll wake the sun up/ By giving him a fresh air/ Full of the wind cup’. Hmmm..eh? But of course, good linear lyrical sense doesn’t matter when a song grabs you impressionistically! The second verse – addressing ‘evening’ this time, becomes even more quirkily enigmatic. Still, the chorus held out for us an ideal we could all identify with – peace, man! That longing to find a place, a time, a context free of obligations and demands – ‘it’s oh, so peaceful here/no one bending over my shoulder/ Nobody whispering in my ear’. Perhaps, who knows, this chimed with a new unfamiliar independence I was experiencing on this three week holiday?
It’s a song by one Kenny Rankin – and you can catch his own performance of it on youTube, and it is truly lovely, even the guitar work – but I cling of course to this first encounter with this song and I do think that Georgie Fame brings a different robust vibrancy to it. His distinctive voice, and his jazz style and proficiency have perhaps never received the popular acclaim they deserved. I was pleased when I found out that Blossom Dearie – whom I love, and who wouldn’t – had written a song of appreciation for him – ‘Sweet Georgie Fame’. Oh, how chuffed would you be if Blossom had written you a song?
So there you go. One fifty year old memory. One young man away from home, on the verge of sixteen-ness and guitar-ownership. One ‘morning song’ to be savoured among – who could have seen it then – a Chelsea Morning lifetime of them. A boy who became the man who found the 45rpm single of the same about 30 years later, to put on his living room Rockola jukebox. And a listener who has come to value ‘Peace’/ ‘Shalom’ to an extent even further, fuller than he did with the stirrings generated from this little old song half a century ago…
Going for a Song 