I was explaining to my 8 year old that this was the original version of the song she knows and asked her who sings the one that's in the charts today. I thought she replied 'I don't like this singer' but what she actually said was 'I don't know a lot about singers'. That got me thinking.
Although I was a little older than my daughter, by the early 80s I was already poised over the record and play buttons of my radio cassette player, every Sunday, to record the chart show, the illegal downloading of its day.
Of course I didn't record the whole show. Like so many others of my generation, I waited, adrenalin fuelled, with the sole objective of trying to record my favourite songs WITHOUT any of the DJ's banter. This weekly activity coupled with the regular purchase of Smash Hits, meant I was able to hold my head up high in the playground when my savvy class mates sang the latest single by Michael Jackson or Bucks Fizz - cutting edge musical tastes at my school obviously! My need for music has continued throughout my life and the devices I listen on have progressed from Sony Walkman to Discman, from iPod to iPhone. It is a staple in my life and although I do still have some Michael Jackson on my playlists, Bucks Fizz, I'm glad to say, have long been replaced by the likes of Bowie, Springsteen, Muse and The Beatles.
Whilst I get it that today my daughter and her friends have the whole internet at their fingertips I realise that I have finally reached that stage of my life where I am increasingly on the verge of saying 'When I was young...'. Not that I think it was better when I was a child, just different. I loved those Sunday afternoons when for two hours it was just me, in my bedroom with my philips radio cassette player and a run down of the top 40 singles in the UK; an introduction to the new and an enjoyment of the familiar. Happy days. When I was young.
