Musical Memories

A while ago, my Mum was having a bit of a clear out when she came across some long-ago-left-behind belongings of mine.  I'm pleased to say that rather than just chucking them out (as many a person might have done with stuff that had been left behind some twenty plus years ago) she brought them back to me, and I have had happy times looking through them.

Old school books, a scrapbook full of pictures cut out from birthday cards, bits of art work, newspaper cuttings, all my 'A' level essays and the 'piece de resistance' (can't do French accents on Blogger), my 'Smash Hits' scrapbook...

 In the days when you could go to Boots or Woolies to buy your singles...

...for less than a pound, I used to get 'Smash Hits' every week.   

The lyrics, that was what I really wanted it for, because it is always kind of embarrassing when you get caught out singing the wrong words. 

Like the time I sang 

'Bless my cotton socks, I'm in the nude'

to 'Reward' by the Teardrop Explodes,

or the 'pork sausages' line in Bohemian Rhapsody 

or Roxy Music's warning, 'Legs stick to leather'...

I used to have a den in the hayloft above my parents' garage where I'd pin up lots of the lyric pages, plus selected posters and cool pictures.  They're mostly still there, the drawing pins half rusted away, paper flapping in the gentle breeze let in by the wooden cladding.  But fortunately, once I'd filled the low wall of the hayloft and the sloping ceiling, I started putting my favourites into a scrapbook instead.

I can't fit the whole page onto the scanner, and I didn't think to take a photo instead (and am too lazy today to go and fetch the camera now!) so you just get two-thirds of a double page spread...

This page features UB40 at the start of their career (I say the best bit) and the one-hit wonder band, Split Enz (though I'm pleased to say that  Neil Finn from Split Enz later had great success with Crowded House).

So take a trip back to 1980 and enjoy these musical memories.

I liked the bloke-y ordinary-ness of the band...

And the thoughtful lyrics...

I can remember how real the threat of nuclear war seemed in those days.

This one is a bit of an 80s classic - the make-up, the hairdos and the shadowy 'atmospherics'.  Love the over-excitable keyboard player, and the one who looks like he crept onto the little stage, behind the band, just to share the limelight.  Or is he there to catch the drummer?

More memories from my Smash Hits Scrapbook another day, if people like them!