I was talking the other day to a friend who said he had been listening to Haircut 100’s album Pelican West. He’s a couple of years younger than me so was probably a bit too young for it at the time (though he is rather precocious) as I was too.
We talked about the jingle jangle of the guitars that was fashionable in early 80s music and how that is an aspect often missed out of musical programmes that “revisit” music of the past in favour of what is often portrayed as ubiquitous synth pop. He told me that this hadn’t been his albom and that he doesn’t remember listening to it at all and that it was much better than he has expected it to be. What surprised him most however wasn’t the quality of Mr Heyward et al’s singing, twanging, strumming and drumming but that when the singles came on, he knew all the words and could sing along too (I imagine in tune too, he’s that kind of person!).
It got me thinking about how it is we can remember entire songs and tunes from (in this case) almost 40 years ago but not remember details from last week. I had a dig around and found this interesting piece by Fran Healy (from the band Travis) on why this might be.
For those of you who are slightly more frivolous, or don’t really care, here are Nick and the boys with Favourite Shirts (boy meets girl), incidentally my favourite of their songs…
Club 30-80 