Pathetically, I cried when I heard John Peel had died - I didn't even know him. But he had a gift for massaging the boring into the gently amusing on Home Truths and for finding odd bits of audio (calling some of them music was stretching the truth) and giving them an airing. I knew I would miss both.
Among the many things Peel played was one track I've never heard again, but never forgotten. It didn't really have a melody, sounding more like a chanted poem than a song (a steady, slightly relentless voice droning something along the lines of 'Down grim streets, lace curtains twitch as I walk slowly ...') Its chorus was the title of this piece, 'Ooh look, there goes Concorde again, ooh look, there goes Concorde again, ooh look, there goes Concorde again', delivered at each repetition with a very slightly different but always mildly bored intonation. It seems a fitting way to alert anyone interested to this , a list of the websites that might help me survive life trapped permanently in an airport. The site is a new one, set up by Brit and Gaw and Worm and various others. Thanks to them all for asking.
Thanks for your impressively eclectic selection! And I don't think there's anyone else in the world who would make a similar bunch of wonderful choices.
ReplyDeleteWhisper it quietly, but Home Truths was one of my pet hates. It reeked to me of comfortable and unthinking sentimentality.
ReplyDeleteThere again, I am clearly a miserable and narrow minded old bugger, whose views should be weighted accordingly. Loved your 6 Clicks, by the way.
Thanks, Gaw.
ReplyDeleteRecusant, in my family you would have been definitely in the majority. There were groans of disgust, fake vomiting noises et cetera whenever it came on. And, of course, without John Peel, the features you identified became impossible to ignore.