It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights…

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6. The Muppets                                                                          When: 1992-1994

Disclaimer: I said I’d stretch the definition of “record” and this post definitely tests it to breaking point. At times it also seriously tests my powers of memory: everything here is true but I can’t guarantee that details haven’t been embellished by time. The video footage contains haircuts that some viewers may find distressing. Oh, and in case it gets confusing, there were two people called Phil in the band. I was one of them.

Intro

“The best mates”

–        Listen, listen, I’ve got a great name for the band.

–        What band ?

–        The one we’re starting.

–        O-kaay, what is it ?

–        Picture this. The stage is dark. Audience going insane. Intro music starts up… “it’s time to      play the music, it’s time to light the lights, it’s time to meet The Muppets on the Muppet show      tonight”… We’re on stage. Straight into the first song.

–        The Muppets ?

–        The Muppets.

“The guitarist and the singer”

–        Richie’s in.

–        Really ? You asked him ?

–        Well, I didn’t really let him say no but that doesn’t matter. He’s in.

–        Can he play ?

–        Can he play ? He’s awesome. Strat. Gibson SG – think he’s played at the Rock Garden or something.

–        Sounds promising.

–        He’s got a singer as well.

–        Who ?

–        Andy. You know him, he’s got a room at the other end of block 7 to you.

–        Yeah, I know him. Can he sing ?

–        Don’t know. Apparently.

“The Chem Soc Ball”

–        We’ve got a gig.

–        What do you mean we’ve got a gig ? We’re not ready.

–        We’ve got a gig. Chemistry Society Ball. I know the guy that’s organising it – I told him that         we normally only play around town but that we’d do it for him as a favour.

–        I haven’t got an amp…

–        Borrow one, it’ll be fine.

–        You haven’t got an amp or, in fact, a bass…

–        I’m buying one, don’t worry.

–        We don’t know any songs…

–        I’ve been thinking about that – about a set-list. Just need a few songs that are pretty easy to play but still amazing. I’m thinking rock obviously.

–        Obviously… but we don’t have a drummer…

–        No but I’ve been recommended a guy. It’ll be fine. Bit older than us, think he’s doing a post-grad in space science or astro physics. Something like that. Got his own kit and, even better, his own car.

–        When’s this gig ?

–        Two weeks.

“The rocket scientist”

–        *knock knock*

–        (Answering door) Yeah ? Hi ?

–        Alex ?

–        Yes

–        Hi, I’m Phil, this is Phil. Sorry to disturb you – we’ve heard you’re a drummer.

–        Er… yeah, I guess. I play in a couple of bands.

–        Fancy joining another one ?

–        Well, I suppose I don’t mind sitting in to see how it goes.

–        Great, you’re in.

–        What are we called ?

–        The Muppets. Don’t worry, we’ll probably change it.

Verse one

Late Spring and the French doors leading from Beaumont Hall to the Botanical Gardens are flung open. Outside curious botanists mingle with unwinding students. Inside five young men set about the task of setting up a rehearsal space. On one side of the room someone carefully unpacks a Fender Stratocaster from its flight case, sets up a myriad of effects pedals, pulls a dust cover from a Roland amp, plugs in, briefly consults a digital tuner on the floor and then refines each note by ear. On the other side of the room someone else absent mindedly strums a cheap, unbranded guitar plugged in to a borrowed amp and chats to the bassist. Somewhere in the middle the drummer puts together his kit with a precision that tells of countless hours placing snares, toms and cymbals, whilst the singer paces, nothing to do.

The drummer signals that he’s almost done and one of the guitarists – the one that isn’t holding his instrument like it’s about to bite him – suggests starting with “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”. The band are booked to play The Chem Soc Ball and, by way of warm up, have persuaded the social committee at their halls of residence to let them play the hall bar. A set list, largely featuring songs with no more than three chords, has been agreed and this Dylan song, albeit the at-the-time current Guns ‘N Roses version, is on it.

The opening bars of the song ring out into the room, the guitarist picking nonchalantly. A certain tension rests across the remainder of the room – they’ve never played together before, never even heard the drummer, are supposed to be performing publically in a couple of days, and then at a function where people have paid for the privilege of attending. A set of circumstances built on a fair amount of bullshit, an object lesson in how far a lot of front can take you. All of it crystallising in this moment – if they can’t run through a mid tempo, three chord Dylan song then the exercise will surely be exposed for the sham that it is ?

The drummer makes a final adjustment to his snare, sits down on his stool, twirls a stick between his fingers and, four bars in, effortlessly plays a run round his kit before everyone comes crashing in to the first verse. Perfectly on time and in tune. Everyone exhales, looks at each other and grins. Music. They might actually get away with this.

Chorus 

The bar at Beaumont Hall is packed. A night’s free entertainment, curiosity value, friendship – whatever the reasons, they had come. It’s hot, the warm evening air ratcheted up several degrees by the mass of bodies. Drink flows liberally and the mood is exuberant, expectant. A receptive home crowd.

Five people detach themselves from the throng and move to the end of the room where instruments are already arranged. The same spot where, two short weeks ago, they’d first come together to play. No stage, just an area for the band demarcated by a line of microphone stands.

The crowd are appreciative before they even hear a note, a cheer erupting at the sight of guitars being slung over shoulders and the crackle of leads pushed into amplifiers. The band pause, look at each other, exchange nods of affirmation and it begins. Thirty breathless, blurred minutes, and eight songs, later it ends – all they had time to learn. They’re not allowed to get away so easily, the audience demanding more. So they play the entire set again, grinning at each other, at this thing they’ve started.

Verse two 

Late Autumn, eighteen months on from that first gig, and the five members of The Muppets crowd round a sound engineer in a run down studio in the centre of Leicester. He pushes faders up and down on the mixing desk in front of him, removes his headphones, spins in his chair and looks up at the band: “what’s next ?”

They’ve been there all day having scraped together the cash between them to book out the space and record some songs: their songs. There’s only time to get down four songs, the playback of each one painfully highlighting each mistake, each chord out of time, each dropped note, in a way that’s usually covered up in the immediacy of a live performance. It’s a sobering, painstaking experience but they persevere, repeating takes, over dubbing – trying to make the best document they can.

At the close of the day they leave – a solitary cassette containing four tunes the only tangible reward for their efforts but all flushed with the deep satisfaction at having created something new.

Chorus 

The band on stage at Stamford Hall is the same one that started out across the road in Beaumont two years ago. The same but different. Better. The rhythm guitarist now at least looks as if he’s on speaking terms with his guitar. The bass and drums play as a unit, each song not necessarily gathering unwanted pace as it goes but staying in tempo. The lead guitarist still doesn’t realise quite how good he is, knocking out dexterous solos almost casually, and the singer now looks comfortable and confident on stage. They’re tighter musically but more relaxed performing.

The audience is bigger and pulled from a broader constituency than their own circle; still a student crowd but now drawn by word of mouth and reputation. They’re no less engaged for it and, by the end of the set, most of the room is up, dancing.

The University film society are here, recording the gig for posterity – freezing in time the band at their high point. Freezing in time the impetuosity to start something from scratch, the commitment to actually carry it through, and the time to turn it into something good. And, yes, also freezing in time some misguided leather trousers, a waistcoat that’s since gone on to a successful solo career touring with Mumford & Sons, and some of the worst hair ever grown on a human head. Mostly though freezing in time one of many fun, joyful nights playing music.

Bridge 

The Muppets played a big part in almost three years of my life; I can remember rather more about the hours of rehearsal and playing than I can about, say, Jean Jacques Rousseau or any of the other great political philosophers that made up my degree course. Think I was more of a John Locke kind of guy.

There are numerous fragments that still raise a smile over twenty years later. Our very first rehearsal was marked with absurdity; as we practiced “Rain” (The Cult) the refrain in the chorus “here comes the rain” caused an elderly couple, outside browsing the Botanical Gardens, to pause at the window, peer in, raise their palms upwards and frown in enquiry. We once played someone’s 21st in London, Richie broke a string on both his guitars mid set, and so the rest of us had to try and fill whilst he repaired the damage – cue the single biggest crime against the blues ever perpetrated as we launched into an impromptu jam. I knew nothing, not even a simple scale, a semi-quaver might as well have been a crisp that failed the quality assurance process at the Walkers factory, so my response to being told that we were going to jam in D was to just play a D chord over and over and over…

There was a regular event at the University for student bands to play – the Old Coffee Bar Club. Periodically it would host covers night which marked a couple of our finer hours as we always flung ourselves into the spirit of it, picking one band, learning a few of their songs and then trying to dress up like them. The Stones were fairly straight forward (“Jumping Jack Flash”, “Sympathy For The Devil”, “Wild Horses”, “ You Can’t Always Get What You Want”) and gave us an excuse to break out a nice line in 60s wigs; presumably I was Brian Jones. Better was Take That (“Only Takes A Minute”, “Take That & Party”, “Could It Be Magic”) where our efforts extended to a couple of brief pieces of choreography and waistcoats over bare (frankly pretty pasty) torsos; presumably I was Jason Orange.

All of those songs, including the Take That ones, stayed in our growing set. By the end we covered a fairly broad range from Seal’s “Crazy” to The Cult’s “She Sells Sanctuary” by way of perennial crowd pleasers – EMF’s “Unbelievable” and the Black Crowes’ take on “Hard To Handle” – through to some slightly more esoteric choices that we liked – The Doors’ “Maggie M’Gill” and JJ Cale’s “After Midnight”. Along the way we lost Bon Jovi’s “Keep The Faith” (top note in chorus too high), Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” (very difficult to play tight), and, due to various disagreements, never quite got round to adding Sister Sledge’s “Lost In Music”, REM’s “Losing My Religion”, or Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. On top of which we’d fashioned about ten of our songs which stood up pretty well – even usually closing with the epic “Boy I’m So Glad (I’m Not You)”, a slow burner that borrowed a bit structurally (okay, quite a bit) from “Freebird”.

Song choices were probably the biggest source of argument in the band as everyone had diverse tastes. They were also a source of tension in that, sometimes, there were songs we couldn’t do due to my lack of technical ability. The most notable instance being Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way”. It’s a pretty simple riff but still too complicated for me and so, despite everyone else firmly believing it would go down a storm, we didn’t do it. This only became problematic when we played a “Battle of the Bands” at one of the halls of residence. By this point we had long since left living in halls and so turned up without an audience full of our friends, albeit with a reputation for being pretty good. First band on were clearly at the point in their group’s life cycle that we’d been at earlier in this piece: brand new, enthusiasm to burn, and a room stocked full of their mates. They opened with sodding “Are You Gonna Go My Way” and the place went berserk. “Battle of the Bands” was declared an unsatisfactory draw. Maybe we pinched it on away goals but it felt like defeat.

And the long mooted name change ? It was discussed many, many times – endless suggestions that not everybody could agree on. As an example, Phil suggested “Seahorse” (him: “it’s exotic and mysterious”, me: “it’s shit”) which was largely ridiculed only for John Squire to name his post Roses band The Seahorses a couple of years later. I was right though, dreadful name for a band. The closest we came to changing was to “The Big Bush Experience” – which I guess we (wrongly) thought was just the right side of cheeky innuendo without being puerile. It only lasted one gig as everyone just kept asking us when we were changing back and referred to as The Muppets regardless. So it stuck.

Final Chorus

The posters outside the Princess Charlotte (don’t look for it, it’s not there anymore) proclaim “local showcase”: bottom of the bill, The Muppets. The posters inside the Charlotte, promoting gigs long since past, whisper the promise of this venue, a roll call of bands that have made it in the last twenty years: Radiohead, Pulp, The Stone Roses, Oasis, Blur, The Killers, Primal Scream, Muse, and the Manics. It might be a spit and sawdust pub in the East Midlands serving up lukewarm beer in plastic glasses but it represents the one thing that drives all aspiring bands: hope.

The bands to be showcased loiter in the back-stage room, all feigning an air of cool detachment, like none of this matters, like it’s something that they do all the time. But it’s all artifice, all a little too studied to be real. There’s palpable nerves all round.

Being bottom of the bill offers only one advantage: you play first. The Muppets have been allocated 15 minutes and four songs but, staying true to the grandest traditions, stretch this out by tacking two songs together and closing with something that goes on for about 7 minutes. In all they probably manage 25 minutes before bowing out, reacting with innocent surprise to the annoyance of the proceeding acts.

The audience reaction is good, if a little less enthusiastic than they’ve become used to. This isn’t solely their crowd. It’s a shift from known student band playing to other students, often at events involving large amounts of booze, to unknown local band playing to paying gig goers. It’s a shift that reveals what’s involved in really trying to make it – the days and days of rehearsing, the relentless slog round pubs and clubs begging to perform, then playing to tiny rooms of people, hoping eventually to build a following. It’s a shift that they never made.

Outro

–        We’ve been thinking about the band next year…

–        Great, good – we have too.

–        Yeah, well it’s a bit awkward, but we’re thinking of staying in Leicester and carrying it on. Only…

–        I think we’re thinking the same sorts of things…

–        …only, we’d like to move on in a different direction. Andy wants to play guitar, there’s some other stuff we want to try… More blues based. Walking bass lines. That sort of thing.

–        So what are you saying ?

–        We think it’d be better if we call it a day with the current line up. I mean, Alex is still going to drum, and Phil, if you want to play bass then that might still work…

–        But you’re kicking me out ?

–        Ah, don’t take it like that, it’s time to change – it’s time to do something else. You’re in to different stuff anyway…

–        Is this because of that fucking Lenny Kravitz song… ?

Coda

It wasn’t really about that fucking Lenny Kravitz song. In part, though, it was a reflection (a fair reflection to be honest) on relative technical ability in the band – I couldn’t play to the standard of the others.

To his eternal credit Phil never took up the offer to remain in the band. It was essentially our friendship (and his incredible drive and ridiculous ability to get people to do things that, rationally, made no sense for them to do) that had started the whole thing and our solidarity stood fast to the end. Continues to do so to this day.

The Muppets mark 2 – I genuinely forget what they re-christened themselves – did carry on for a while in Leicester. I saw them play at a pub on new year’s eve, I guess 1994/5, and it was a strange, sad experience watching Andy, Rich, Alex, and some new bassist (who, yes, did indeed play a lot of walking bass lines) run through a lot of our old set. Still no Kravitz though.

However, my abiding memory of those couple of years isn’t one of sadness for what might have been but one of real pride in what we did – it might not seem like much in the scheme of things but we recorded a bunch of our own songs, played to a lot of happy people, and shared a lot of great moments. Some of which – lost in a song on stage, watching the reaction of the audience, seeing people respond to something you’re creating – are amongst the happiest of my life.

Our Lady, Star Of The Sea

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5. Stella Maris – Moby                                                               When: 2011

“Stella Maris” (Latin: star of the sea) is often used in reference to the Virgin Mary – known in English as Our Lady, Star Of The Sea – and also as a name for Polaris, the North Star. Either way it’s a point of guidance – for lost sailors and lost souls.

The extraordinary Moby track of the same name takes some familiar Moby tropes – appropriated vocal, huge synth chords, a slavering of strings – and blends them into a moving, redemptive piece of music. It’s built from a 12th century plainsong recorded by Trio Mediaeval; a simple but stunning, haunting vocal over a dirge (the original is here and is amazing). Moby distorts and buries the voice beneath those patented, enormous synths, producing an effect that’s akin to half hearing them through ears clogged with water. They’re there but dislocated, distorted, displaced – the purity of the voice struggling to be heard.

There are some records which bypass parts of my conscious, rational mind and cut straight to an emotional truth. This track, by turns breathtakingly beautiful and achingly sad, has the capacity to unlock me with ease. I’ve long believed I’m principally driven by a rational approach to life but, the older (and madder) I’ve got the more I’ve come to appreciate, if not fully understand, that as fallacy. If internalisation was an Olympic sport then, frankly, don’t even show up – I’m taking home that gold medal – and it’s only through external agents that some of the forces at play inside of me find a way out. This is one such agent.

It’s interesting that, effectively, the song has no words – the original piece is in Latin and is rendered largely incoherent in the production anyway. The response engendered – that’s beautiful, that’s colossally sad­, that’s like, to nick another Moby song title, the face of god moving over the water – is a gut response to the music. And I can’t deconstruct that. I neither know enough, technically, about how it’s achieved nor have the understanding of why a particularly assembled set of notes and instruments can make the hair on the nape of your neck stand up, or make you cry, or make you dance. “Stella Maris” is not much of a dancer.

As I can’t deconstruct, and in the spirit of National Poetry Day (October 3rd), I thought I’d attempt to construct. This isn’t an attempt at lyrics that the song doesn’t need, rather it’s my closest approximation for how it makes me feel or how it allows me to reference a state of feeling that I am familiar with.

Star Of The Sea

Submerged, sinking, lost, and

Drifting within the murk

Beneath the waves.

Ebbing, flowing.

Immune to the swell; the rise and fall, the salt’s lash.

But trapped; wrecked.

……

Drowning, silent, alone, and

Accepting the deep embrace

Of the implacable sea.

Falling, fading.

Untouched by the storm; the gusting gale, the stinging hail.

But dislocated; numb.

……

An echoing tone through the depths, penetrates.

A light in the gloom,

Distant but fixed, guiding me home.

Surging, rising.

It speaks of water becalmed, of skies quiet and clear.

Breaking surface; released.

……

They sing: don’t look back, don’t be scared, don’t be scared.

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4. Engine To Turn – Tift Merritt                                                             When: Summer 2013

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.” Abraham Maslow

Songs can save lives. They can enrich, nourish, bring hope, ease pain, and give expression and outlet to feelings that might otherwise overwhelm.

Three months ago I stood below deck on a moored boat in Bristol, beer in hand, and waited for Tift Merritt to perform. I was all over the place. Two years, perhaps more, of surgery, ill health, redundancy, change, lack of control, listlessness, and uncertainty had coalesced into a series of panic attacks. Constriction of the chest, shortness of breath, a chorus of competing voices yelling for attention in my head; no idea which of them to listen to first. Or whether to listen to any of them. Emotionally and mentally I had run out of road – exhausted – and my body just shut me down.

It’s a terrifying experience to wake up in the middle of the night unable to breathe, heart accelerating in your chest like it’s trying to hit enough speed to break out. I thought I was having a cardiac arrest. Doctor checked everything out and all was fine. Except, obviously, it wasn’t. I was mainlining adrenaline and cortisol, a primitive physiological response to stimulus, to stress.

Societally stress is a loaded word. Sometimes used blithely, mundanely (“stop doing that, you’re stressing me out”) but in its clinical manifestation it’s anything but mundane. And it’s hard to empathise with, to understand. Tolerances are so different, symptoms vary, and causes are wide ranging: one person’s bad couple of years is another’s exciting set of opportunities. I can tell you about the ruptured ligament in my knee and the resulting operations and it’s easy, you’ll “get it”, you can understand the mechanics of it. To tell you about my battles with depression, with an unspecified mental malaise, will be a little harder. I may need to hide behind some records. I may need as many as 42.

So, back on board The Thekla, moored and anchored – ain’t it grand when life throws you a free metaphor ? Tift Merritt is touring her wonderful new album, “Travelling Alone”, and takes to the stage, opening with “Engine To Turn” from her previous record, “See You On The Moon”. It’s one of my favourite songs of hers and, in the space of three minutes, it strips everything away, helps me let go of everything I’ve been holding on to – some of which is profoundly damaging to me – and all that’s left is me, a beer in one hand, my wife’s hand in the other, and the opportunity to listen to a great singer perform. Tears roll down my face and I lose myself in the next 75 minutes of the gig.

“Engine To Turn” is, like much of Merritt’s later work, a deceptively simple song. Four chords; verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. Lyrically direct, honest, straight, unadorned. Within familiar forms she addresses universal themes – there’s no mistaking what the song is broadly about but it leaves enough space for you to layer in your own experience, for the words to attach themselves to your own meaning.

From the outset the song sets out its challenge, opening up a theme – uncertainty – which has already cropped up in the 42 and, no doubt, will again:

I don’t know how to fix the world.

I don’t know how to fix myself.

Clearly for me personally this strongly resonates, speaking directly to a sense of being unwell, of being broken, and not being entirely clear what to do about it. This is further explored in the metaphor that gives the song its title – “I’m just trying to get the engine to turn”. The machinery is all there but it won’t come to life and typically, to extend the motif, an engine either needs fuel or a spark to get going. As I wrote earlier, I was running on empty, had run out of road. Any more car imagery and this is in danger of turning into a Springsteen song…

However, this isn’t a song that wallows in its own uncertainty, it’s not a pessimistic lament to a life without meaning. There are solutions here, simple articulations of what might work:

…seems like some tenderness could turn the whole thing around…

…seems like I ought to slow down…

…maybe the pieces are here if I just took a good look around…

And finally there’s an almost defiant statement of intent that closes each chorus and, ultimately, the song:

I’m just trying to smile through my tears
And I still got so much to learn

But the best I can is what I have to give

Gonna give it while I’m here 

Not beaten. Unbowed. Determined. An eloquent expression of, perhaps, all that life is about.

The final chorus is prefaced by the wonderful bridge, an internal rallying cry that’s the exact opposite of my previously referenced competing voices yelling for attention:

Sometimes there’s a choir in my head

Singing at the top of its voice

Singing at the top of its voice

They sing: don’t look back

Don’t be scared

Don’t be scared

If, at risk of sounding like an X-factor contestant, my “journey” towards dealing with my own demons (and its expression through these words) is about anything then it’s about finding a way for these shouting, squabbling, picky, destructive, competing voices in my head to cohere into a choir that sings up in defiance, support and reassurance.

There’s a Bukowski quote that feels apposite with respect to Merritt’s work over her last couple of records, and particularly so with respect to “Engine To Turn”:  “An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.”

There’s presumably a story to be told about Merritt’s career, from feted Americana star (debut “Bramble Rose”) to Grammy nomination (second album “Tambourine”), being dropped by Lost Highway, her label, moving to Paris, then to New York, and ultimately recording another three fine singer-songwriter records in the best traditions of Carole King, Lucinda Williams, or Emmylou Harris. But, interesting story that it is, my connection to her, my interest in her, is through her work – through what seems to be her ongoing assertion of personal and artistic integrity and growth. There’s a great recent interview with Backseat Mafia here which explores some of this territory.

Since that relative commercial failure of second album “Tambourine” and the subsequent fall out, Merritt has mined a progressively simpler, sparser seam of songs. In paring back the production and some of the instrumentation in the songs all that’s left is the craft of her songwriting. It says much about her skill that her work sounds just as vital now, if not more so, when delivered with just a voice and acoustic guitar as it did backed by a full band, Memphis style horns, and George Drakoulias production.

In many respects it’s a travesty that her audience in the UK is so limited, there must have been 80 of us at The Thekla on a Friday night. However, I suspect that’s no longer her overriding motivation. There are times in the performance that I saw – and also when I saw her play solo at The Radcliffe Centre in Buckingham (a converted church with a grand piano and great acoustics) a couple of years ago – when she and the band are transported in the performance, caught in a moment in which everything else falls away. The Maslow quote that opens this piece about sums it up; the impulse to create, the impulse to connect, irrespective of the size of the crowd, seems to be the motivating force at work. I can’t speak for the rest of the audience but she created a moment that allowed me to, if only briefly, let go of my troubles and regain some perspective. Music can do that.

Songs can save lives. Don’t be scared. Bukowski again: “We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us”. Now to work on getting my choir to believe it and sing it loudly and often.

We got love sewn up, that’s enough

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3. You’re All I Need To Get By – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

When: 1999 to today

Two minutes and fifty one seconds. It will take longer to read these thousand or so words than listen to the song. If you’re short for time then, seriously, skip the words and listen to the song: everything you need to know about joy, about love, about the best parts of life, is there.

Tammi Terrell was born Thomasina Montgomery in 1945. She died, aged just 24, in 1970 of complications from brain cancer. Marvin Gaye was born Marvin Gay in 1939. He died, aged just 44, in 1984: fatally shot by his father. Two lives cut tragically short that entwined to glorious but brief effect, from ’67 until Terrell’s death, on thirty six songs spread across three albums.

Terrell was singing from her mid teens, working back up for James Brown and releasing material as a solo artist until she came to the attention of Berry Gordy who signed her to Motown in 1965. Gordy suggested the name change from Montgomery to Terrell and, two years later, hooked her up with Gaye to record a series of duets. Her life to that point had seen more than its share of pain; Terrell was raped as an eleven year old, was beaten by James Brown, and later suffered further physical abuse from David Ruffin, singer with the Temptations, with whom she had a love affair without realizing that he was married with three children. In contrast to all of that she forged a close, platonic friendship with Gaye and they complemented each other perfectly as performers: her street sass against his boy-next-door charm.

Their partnership was underpinned by the songwriting of Valerie Simpson and Nick Ashford whose opening gift to them was “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. As opening gifts go that’s not too shabby. Footage of Gaye and Terrell performing together seems pretty rare but there’s a couple of performances of this song on Youtube (here and here) which are well worth watching to get a visual sense of their chemistry; they are utterly adorable and she’s sensational. There’s also a great 40 minute TV documentary – Unsung – which tells the story of her life if you’re curious for more. It’s a story that’s crying out for a biopic and she deserves to be much better known.

“You’re All I Need To Get By”, their sixth single, would have been part of my childhood. Picking up the thread from the last entry my parents had a number of Motown compilation albums – all in the Motown Chartbusters series. Volume 3 (the one with a silver, almost mirrored cover) is an absolute doozy – all killer, no filler, including:

Marvin Gaye: I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Diana Ross & The Supremes: I’m Gonna Make You Love Me, Love Child

Stevie Wonder: My Cherie Amour, For Once In My Life

The Isley Brothers: This Old Heart Of Mine

Martha Reeves & The Vandellas: Dancing In The Street

The Temptations: Get Ready

Jr Walker & The All Stars: (I’m A) Roadrunner

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles: Tracks Of My Tears

It’s the one you’d send into space, the one that would serve any party anywhere in the world, for any age group. What are you waiting for ? You can pick up volumes 1 to 3 for less than a fiver. Two hours of the finest crafted pop music in history for the price of a couple of cappuccinos.

Musically “You’re All I Need To Get By” departed a little from the Motown template and feels rooted in soul and gospel. Lyrically it’s a heartfelt, straightforward dedication of love. There’s a purity to Gaye and Terrell’s duets, sweet without being saccharine, romantic but real. They’re incredibly light of touch, perfectly capturing the heady sensation of falling in love; for me they’re the perfect encapsulation of that initial realisation that you’ve fallen for someone. They sound like they’re in love – tonally complementing each other, improvised call and response, harmonies to die for. All the more remarkable given that, for the most part, they recorded their vocals separately – scarcely believable when you listen. It sounds like they must have been face to face singing into the same microphone.

For much of my life the sentiment in “You’re All I Need To Get By” was an aspiration, a desire to find the one person that I wanted to spend my days with. That changed in 1999 when, through good fortune and a fair amount of alcohol, I met my wife. I’ve been on innumerable corporate “development” events over the past 18 years or so, learning how to bluff accounting (finance for non-finance managers – as soul destroying as it sounds), how to give feedback (“your punctuality can’t be faulted but….”), and even how to listen (a skill not found in abundance in most large organisations). I’ve taken Myers Briggs to uncover my personality preferences (INTP if you’re interested – if you’re also INTP then you would be), Belbin to work out my team role (can’t remember but definitely not completer finisher), and conducted various quizzes and questionnaires designed to work out what I’m best at. However, the one lasting, constant change to who I am, to my entire life, that arose from one of these events was meeting Nikki.

In early ’99 I had relocated from Nottingham and the world of hosiery and vitamins at Boots to live in London, commuting out to Comet in Rickmansworth. At the time Comet was still part of the larger Kingfisher group and, by some subterfuge, I had blagged my way on to participate in the development events that supported KMDS (Kingfisher Management Development Scheme) – essentially a graduate program to shape their business leaders of tomorrow.

The first event I attended was in Southampton and ran across two days. I have absolutely no idea what the course content was but can remember that we ended up in a dodgy club called Jumpin’ Jacks on the night out: this will tell you all you need to know about my less than meteoric career rise since. During the course of said night out I spent a lot of time talking to Nikki Matthews whom I’d met that day. Sassy, sexy, clever, and prepared to argue the case for late 90s boy bands with a surprising degree of passion. This is her, obviously, not me. Sparks flew.

Fast forward a few months and Nikki moves to Comet. Serendipitous. Once again we got to spend some time together on a development course; this time an outward bound leadership event in Devon. I was a delegate, Nikki was a facilitator. This was the first and last time in my working life that I had to rescue someone from a pothole or salvage toxic nuclear waste from an island (losing only one person to the lake and no-one to the fake radioactive material). Subsequently there hasn’t been much call for either skill in the topsy turvy world of market research. Nikki had to follow me on one of the exercises and appraise my performance: it was also the first and last time she had to chase after me. A post course invitation to lunch, to “get some additional feedback” (real smooth, Phil), and the rest is history.

I can’t genuinely lay claim to “You’re All I Need To Get By” being an intrinsic part of our early relationship; it was never “our song”. In fact, that part of our time together was marked, not entirely ironically, by a shared love of Christina Aguilera’s “Genie In A Bottle” and, later, by Josh Rouse’s “Slaveship”. The reasons for the former now escape me, I may return to the latter at a later stage in the 42.

However, I can lay claim to the song speaking fundamentally to me about the enduring love I have for my wife; both in the expression of the romantic ideal of love but also the recognition that it’s something that takes work, that deepens with effort and time. I can’t say it better than the song says it: 

Cause we, we got the right foundation and with love and determination
You’re all, you’re all I want to strive for and do a little more
You’re all, all the joys under the sun wrapped up into one
You’re all, you’re all I need, you’re all I need, you’re all I need to get by

Ultimately that this pure expression of love should come from two singers that led, on the face of it, such tragic lives is fascinating to me. Particularly with respect to Tammi Terrell – on recording this song she had been diagnosed with cancer, had undertaken a major operation to remove a tumour from her brain, and had lived a short life enduring dysfunctional, violent relationships and ongoing pain from her illness. It’s testament to her prowess as a performer or her spirit as a human bring, or both, that she’s able to articulate so convincingly one of the finest experiences as a person – falling and being in love – whilst suffering so much. Her story is an inspiration and, whilst mine might not inspire the world at large in quite the same way, I’ll always endeavour to carry some of the same sentiment, the same courage, and the same joy in being in love and being alive.

Hey now, hey now now

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2. This Corrosion – Sisters of Mercy                                                         When: 1987

If there’s ever a competition to find the worst goth in the history of the UK then I will put my name forwards. I guess this could form the basis of my application.

My first forays into building my own record collection began, in earnest, from the age of around 15. I had a few bits of vinyl from late primary school – notably Abba’s “Super Trouper” LP – and had once traded a T-Rex 7” that had belonged to my dad with my Uncle Steve for… wait for it… Joe Dolce’s “Shaddap You Face”. In my defence I was 9. It’s still not a great defence. However, the arrival of adolescence signaled a renewed interest in music.

Initially it’s fair to say that much of my taste was borrowed, mostly from my parents. Quite a bit of this has stayed with me – Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Queen, Neil Diamond, Cat Stevens, Meatloaf, Motown, early Rod Stewart – but it’s fair to say that none of it felt like it was really mine. In most cases it literally wasn’t mine – held on a set of old C60 cassettes that my dad insisted on using despite the fact that you couldn’t fit an album on one side. For a very, very long time I didn’t realise that Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” was a double album; the only up side of this was it made my first listen of “Comfortably Numb” even more jaw dropping. It’s also fair to say that, in the mid to late 80s, this was a collection of artists that was nobody’s idea of “cool”. Such vagaries aside, of course, I can now confidently state the case for any of them – although Meatloaf is a stretch (but a pertinent one given the song at hand, more of which later).

Ah, “cool”. A concept long past my understanding but one that would have greatly preoccupied my teenage self. At that time it probably would have meant owning a Lacoste cardigan, in some suitably pastel shade, and persuading Caroline from the Number 20 bus to see Top Gun with me. Cool, and Caroline, proved elusive. However, irrespective of what this slippery concept fully entailed, the notion that music, or specifically bands, could be a marker for how you presented yourself to the world seemed to be part of it. If adolescence is the time when you begin to build your own identity, and particularly the way in which that identity is shown to the world, then music was very definitely a set of bricks I wanted to use.

So if you’re thinking that we’re headed, inexorably, towards a declaration that my first, independent view of what was cool happened to be goth then you’d be right.

“This Corrosion” was the first single released by the second (arguably third) version of The Sisters Of Mercy. Rising to prominence – or more appropriately emerging from a heavy fug of dry ice – in Leeds during the early 80s the Sisters had basically imploded come 1985. Singer Andrew Eldritch, beginning a pattern that was to repeat through the band’s life, fell out with then guitarist Wayne Hussey and bassist Craig Adams. The latter two formed a new band called The Sisterhood but were thwarted in establishing their new outfit by Eldritch; concerned that the name was too similar to The Sisters Of Mercy he quickly put out a single under The Sisterhood name in order to legally claim it. Allegedly, though never substantiated, it ended in the civil courts with Eldritch suing his former brothers-in-black for £25,000, and winning. When he then put out the album Gift under The Sisterhood name the opening track, “Jihad“, begins with a female voice intoning two, five, zero, zero, zero. History may judge all of this petty but, regardless, one consequence of the ignominy and acrimony surrounding the split and resulting spat over band names was “This Corrosion”.

Hussey and Adams formed The Mission whilst Eldritch, having seen off the perceived threat to the Sisters’ name, picked up his old band moniker and pressed ahead, taking his music away from the guitar orientation of debut album “First And Last And Always”. The first fruit of the new direction was “This Corrosion”, an eleven minute electro-rock track, featuring a 40 piece choir, produced by Jim Steinman (of “Bat Out Of Hell” fame, hence the earlier Meatloaf reference). You don’t really hear a guitar until a solo break, almost four minutes in.

The song directly relates to the break up of Sisters mark 1. According to Eldritch the lyrics are largely a parody – aimed squarely at Hussey – and are deliberately not intended to mean anything; just to sound “cool”. In that, and to my 15 year old self, he very much succeeded. I had no idea what “kill the king when love is the law” or “give me siren, child, and do you hear me call” meant but they sounded amazing. Particularly in the context of a song that, musically, absolutely pummels the senses.

I’m not totally convinced that all of the lyrics are as much a pastiche as Eldritch claims. There are some fairly direct nods to his former band mates: “selling the don’t belong”, “do you have a word for giving away, got a song for me?”, and the final section could be read as Eldritch’s farewell address to them:

I got nothing to say I ain’t said before

I bled all I can, I won’t bleed no more

I don’t need no one to understand

Why the blood run hold

The hired hand

On heart

Hand of God

Floodland and driven apart

Run cold

Turn

Burn

Like a healing hand

Even if, to keep Eldritch at his word, that section is pure mockery, only intended to call Hussey on the (as perceived by Eldritch) meaningless nature of his lyrics, it’s still one of my favourite 30 seconds of recorded music ever. And it’s definitively the coolest.

What’s interesting, in retrospect, about my love of this song is how it bridged what I’d inherited musically and what I went on to seek out. As alluded earlier one of the records my dad passed on to me was Meatloaf’s “Bat Out Of Hell”; an utterly ridiculous, overblown pastiche of 50s American rock and roll. I think it’s fantastic. Bat is as much Jim Steinman’s record as ‘Loaf’s and his production job on “This Corrosion” – New York Choral Society, Wagner, £50,000 budget – followed the basic template he made plain in the title of a song on “Bat Out Of Hell 2”: “Everything Louder Than Everything Else”. Steinman’s orchestration and bombast made it easy to like the Sisters. At the very least you listen to the choir open the track and think: what the hell is that ? Well, you certainly did in a year that boasted Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” as its biggest record.

The song opened up “alternative” music for me, via Bauhaus and Siouxsie – goth opening up indie. It also, strangely, opened up folk music for me, via All About Eve who became associated with the late 80s goth scene (somewhat erroneously but that’s a story for another time). Unknowingly at the time it also primed me for Berlin era Bowie, undoubtedly an influence (musically and stylistically) on Eldritch.

Most importantly it was perhaps the first time I marked out some musical territory that didn’t belong to my parents, wasn’t inherited: was a free choice about my own tastes and how I saw myself. The fact that I was choosing to see myself as a very pale, very thin man, dressed all in black leather, picking his way through a post apocalyptic wasteland, with only a similarly clad female dominatrix for company perhaps says much about the plight of an average 15 year old boy growing up in Plymouth in the late 1980s.

And so here’s why I lay claim to being the UK’s worst goth. Whilst, in my head I stalked the West Country in a long dark trench coat, quoting Poe and Coleridge, my jet black hair lustrous beneath the full moon, in reality my only concession to being an actual goth was to buy a black shirt. A shirt which survived precisely one of my mother’s boiling washes before being forever rendered a washed out grey.

In my heart though I’d changed.

But except in dreams you’re never really free

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1: Desperados Under The Eaves – Warren Zevon.                        When: right now.

This wasn’t on the list. Just over a fortnight ago I’d never even heard it before. At last count I’ve now heard it 60 times. Listening to it over and over and over. Learning to play it, badly, on the guitar. Reading about it. Writing about it. That is why it now starts the list.

For me music never loses its capacity to surprise; there’s always something undiscovered, something unheard. The balance of this list, the other 41, are all rooted in a time, a place, framed by a particular point in my life. In many cases that’s why they’re on the list at all. Later in the 42 @ 42, when we get to The Posies’ “Dream All Day”, I won’t claim it’s the greatest song ever written but it, without fail, will put me down drunk in a field in Reading in 1996 throwing straw at my friends.

This is different because it’s new. Not actually new, it was recorded in 1976, but new to me. It arrived by chance. The result of a casual reading of a piece in The Guardian on Zevon which contained enough to make me think: why haven’t I heard this guy ? Time was someone might have passed you a tape, carefully curated selections of songs that they’d think you like (I miss that), but now everything you could ever want to hear is available within two clicks. So I started at the beginning – his debut, eponymous album – and there, right at the end, was this. The right song at the right time. A five minute rumination on being at your lowest ebb, poised between the abyss and salvation.

It starts with strings picking out the chords from the album opener “Frank And Jesse James”. Exact same sequence. A signal that we’ve come full circle; our titular outlaws no longer “riding, riding, riding” but now hunkered down and desperate. This gives way, via a brief guitar figure, to what, at first, sounds like typical 70s singer songwriter fare – vocals over piano.

First verse:

I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel

I was staring in my empty coffee cup

I was thinking that the gypsy wasn’t lying

All the salty margaritas in Los Angeles, I’m gonna drink them up

At salty margaritas I’m interested. It’s so specific. So vivid. And surely not an accident that of all the tastes to pull out of a margarita it’s the bitter one that we’re concerned with.

And if California slides into the ocean

Like the mystics and statistics say it will

I predict this motel will be standing

Until I pay my bill… 

Now I know something special’s going on. The mystics and statistics line – opposing sources of truth, deliciously united in their rhymic opinion – is lyrically arresting enough but then we get the pay off. Just as things threaten to get too serious, there’s the sardonic prediction. Our narrator’s entire world view encapsulated in four lines. The world’s going to shit and I’ll still have to pick up the tab.

Chorus

Don’t the sun look angry through the trees

Don’t the trees look like crucified thieves

Don’t you feel like desperados under the eaves

Heaven help the one who leaves

The chorus crashes in to the song – literally announced with a guttural “huh”, chords descending through Bb, Am, Gm, C. Glorious Carl Wilson harmony vocals echoing in the background, juxtaposing the message: it’s hell out there, I’m staying in here. My refuge in the hotel: under the eaves. The lyrics now are biblical in their ire, our narrator tormented by the sun, by images of nature turned to visions of crucifixion. And surely, in the context of LA in the mid 70s, amongst the musical circles Zevon moved in, “desperados” is a none too sly reference to the Eagles ? We digress.

I’m still waking up in the mornings with shaking hands

And I’m trying to find a girl who understands me

But except in dreams you’re never really free

Don’t the sun look angry at me

This verse (it’s almost a mirror of the chorus) lets us join the dots – from salty margaritas to shaking hands, with the sunlight too painful to bear. There’s a literal read with our protagonist as a washed up alcoholic, hiding out in a hotel in LA, lonely and unsure. By all accounts the literal read is also, most likely, the largely autobiographical read too. Zevon, pre fame, allegedly once jumped a window at a local motel to avoid paying a bill – returning once this record was out, only for the motel to refuse him trying to settle the account. They accepted a signed record apparently. He was also no stranger to booze and wound up in rehab.

However, I think there’s a route in to the song – and certainly my route in to the song – which plays to the underlying themes of uncertainty, of peering to the future, of trying to make sense of how you’ve arrived at this point, which makes the alcoholism somewhat irrelevant. It can be read as a symptom, not necessarily the diagnosis. As stated earlier this is a rumination on being down, maybe out, but with an ending that suggests there’s a way to pick up the pieces.

I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel

I was listening to the air conditioner hum

And it went mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm…

… look away, down Gower Avenue…

So. The end of the song – and the echoing refrain to “look away, down Gower Avenue” – is what finally elevates this from great to spectacular. First of all there’s just the sheer audacity, the gall, almost conceit, in referencing the hum of the air conditioner and then picking out the song’s melody in that hum. The first time I heard it I wanted to laugh; partly in delight but partly because it’s so unexpected. In the wrong hands it would be utterly ridiculous: I realise I’m perilously close to Spinal Tap “it’s such a fine line between stupid and clever” territory here.

It’s an astonishing moment and suddenly the whole song coheres – Zevon sitting in the hotel room, a moment of clarity arising from the thrum of the air conditioning, an optimistic melody forming from within the white noise, gazing down the street at the hills, at the Hollywood sign, at the hope it represents. It’s like the last two minutes of the greatest film about LA you’ve never seen.

This happens to me, for me, every couple of years – more if I’m lucky. Something completely unknown appears and I can’t imagine having never heard it before, can’t imagine now not hearing it again. Abba’s “Winner Takes It All” was maybe the first song that hit me like that (aged 10, more of that later) and this is the latest. It sounds melodramatic but it becomes an important part of my life. I’ve always used music as a means to express my inner life (“hey, why so many sad songs, Phil ?”) and still marvel at the capacity to convey the human experience a three or four minute pop song has.

If nothing else this was an attempt to share some of that feeling.