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Has it been that long?
Sunday, 30 April 2006 14:54I was watching TV late last night, flicking between the totally barmy Dracula 2000, the repeat of Never Mind the Buzzcocks and the music channels. I was watching 'Radio Ga Ga' on Vh1 Classic when my dad came in.
He watched for a minute, not being too foolish to disturb me, then said: "How long has he been dead now?" in reference to Mr Mercury. "Fifteen years this November, dude," said I. He watched for a moment or two more and then asked: "That long? Really? Blimey." or something along those lines.
Yes, it has been that long. It was 15 years since Steve Marriott died in a house fire ten days ago. In July it will be thirty five years since The Morrison bought it in Paris. It was twenty years since Philip in January, twenty five since John in December past.
To really freak you out: the next time Buddy Holly's anniversary comes round, it will be forty eight years since his plane crashed.
Fifteen years ago, I remember Freddie and the rest of Queen being dressed up in mad fancy dress for I'm Going Slightly Mad. I was at primary school with my friends, planning a life of music myself with our band (mercifully, it never played a note) called The Dooburns. My lunchtimes were taken up with the kind of make-believe nonsense that adults miss dreadfully because their imagination has been crushed under the jackboot of Sameness.
Twenty years ago, I was at my first primary school and it hadn't yet all gone to hell in a handbasket. We made a fuss around that time because our teacher got married. We gave her a cake with a Sindy doll dressed as a bride for decoration. Our concept of 'young' was babies, because they were the only people younger than us. Our school books were rarely more than ten pages long.
Thirty five years ago, I wouldn't be born for another eleven years. Britain had just gone decimal, changing from the (frankly bizarre) pounds, shillings, pence stuff. Thin Lizzy had just released their first album. Led Zeppelin came out with their fourth. Nixon was president in the USA and we in Britain had Ted Heath. Ireland still had Eamon De Valera! Idi Amin put Uganda into the nightly news bulletins. My mum and dad wouldn't be married for another year- and she'd only just turned twenty! In Rome, the pope was Paul IV- there have been three since, including He Of The Long Reign JP II. Hell, Watergate was still just a hotel. Ewan McGregor was born. Sean Connery was James Bond! Not Roger Moore, Sean Connery! I say all this not to demonstrate my ability to navigate Wikipedia, but to somehow demonstrate what a terrifically different world it was then. It's so long ago. Long ago and worlds apart, as the Small Faces said.
What point am I trying to make? I'm not honestly sure now I'm sat here. Scholars on the subject will tell you that music does not exist in a bubble or a vacuum, that the world around it informs it as much as it can sometimes inform the world. Yet, somehow, great music transcends such trivial things as time, space, religion, culture, colour, national borders, political ideologies. Sometimes, great music exists on its own merits and it becomes a shock to discover that it's been around as long as it has, and yet also a shock to discover it hasn't always been there. Music, great music, doesn't need to worry about such nonsense as time.
Yet, and yet, for me it is soul-crunchingly sad to know that my boy has been gone the length of time it takes Ewan McGregor to grow up and make three Star Wars films, or that he's been dead so long that it's as long ago as Idi Amin and Nixon. Sad to know that he never got to comment on a Hollywood actor becoming president of the US, never got to see the collapse of Communism and the end to the Cold War, which was by no means a done deal in 1971. He never got to see the end of Vietnam. He never got to hear disco or punk or the new romantics or electronica. He never got to hear the stuff that came next.
The things Morrison didn't get to rail against, the things John Lennon couldn't challenge us on. The music Philip Lynott didn't get to dabble in. The splendour Freddie took away at the dawn of the 1990s to leave us with the Decade That Khaki, Tan, Beige and Camel Ate. Enough time has now passed that not only could all that fill a book, but it has.
So yes, whoever you ask me about, it has been that long. And don't I fucking well know it.
He watched for a minute, not being too foolish to disturb me, then said: "How long has he been dead now?" in reference to Mr Mercury. "Fifteen years this November, dude," said I. He watched for a moment or two more and then asked: "That long? Really? Blimey." or something along those lines.
Yes, it has been that long. It was 15 years since Steve Marriott died in a house fire ten days ago. In July it will be thirty five years since The Morrison bought it in Paris. It was twenty years since Philip in January, twenty five since John in December past.
To really freak you out: the next time Buddy Holly's anniversary comes round, it will be forty eight years since his plane crashed.
Fifteen years ago, I remember Freddie and the rest of Queen being dressed up in mad fancy dress for I'm Going Slightly Mad. I was at primary school with my friends, planning a life of music myself with our band (mercifully, it never played a note) called The Dooburns. My lunchtimes were taken up with the kind of make-believe nonsense that adults miss dreadfully because their imagination has been crushed under the jackboot of Sameness.
Twenty years ago, I was at my first primary school and it hadn't yet all gone to hell in a handbasket. We made a fuss around that time because our teacher got married. We gave her a cake with a Sindy doll dressed as a bride for decoration. Our concept of 'young' was babies, because they were the only people younger than us. Our school books were rarely more than ten pages long.
Thirty five years ago, I wouldn't be born for another eleven years. Britain had just gone decimal, changing from the (frankly bizarre) pounds, shillings, pence stuff. Thin Lizzy had just released their first album. Led Zeppelin came out with their fourth. Nixon was president in the USA and we in Britain had Ted Heath. Ireland still had Eamon De Valera! Idi Amin put Uganda into the nightly news bulletins. My mum and dad wouldn't be married for another year- and she'd only just turned twenty! In Rome, the pope was Paul IV- there have been three since, including He Of The Long Reign JP II. Hell, Watergate was still just a hotel. Ewan McGregor was born. Sean Connery was James Bond! Not Roger Moore, Sean Connery! I say all this not to demonstrate my ability to navigate Wikipedia, but to somehow demonstrate what a terrifically different world it was then. It's so long ago. Long ago and worlds apart, as the Small Faces said.
What point am I trying to make? I'm not honestly sure now I'm sat here. Scholars on the subject will tell you that music does not exist in a bubble or a vacuum, that the world around it informs it as much as it can sometimes inform the world. Yet, somehow, great music transcends such trivial things as time, space, religion, culture, colour, national borders, political ideologies. Sometimes, great music exists on its own merits and it becomes a shock to discover that it's been around as long as it has, and yet also a shock to discover it hasn't always been there. Music, great music, doesn't need to worry about such nonsense as time.
Yet, and yet, for me it is soul-crunchingly sad to know that my boy has been gone the length of time it takes Ewan McGregor to grow up and make three Star Wars films, or that he's been dead so long that it's as long ago as Idi Amin and Nixon. Sad to know that he never got to comment on a Hollywood actor becoming president of the US, never got to see the collapse of Communism and the end to the Cold War, which was by no means a done deal in 1971. He never got to see the end of Vietnam. He never got to hear disco or punk or the new romantics or electronica. He never got to hear the stuff that came next.
The things Morrison didn't get to rail against, the things John Lennon couldn't challenge us on. The music Philip Lynott didn't get to dabble in. The splendour Freddie took away at the dawn of the 1990s to leave us with the Decade That Khaki, Tan, Beige and Camel Ate. Enough time has now passed that not only could all that fill a book, but it has.
So yes, whoever you ask me about, it has been that long. And don't I fucking well know it.
