September 12th
In honour of my Dad's birthday today, here is a piece inspired by songs that went to no.1 on the charts on this day when he was young, and how things come full circle...
Trident Studios in London contained the only eight track recording machine back in 1968. Though it was this that recorded the final mix we know so well, the first few drafts of The Beatles’ 7 minute hit ‘Hey Jude’ were actually recorded at Abbey Road Studios. Tomorrow, on the 13th of September 2024, you’ll step into that same building to watch your orchestral covers come to life. Pieces I have only heard snippets of spilling from your studio for the past six months. I remember spending my own 8th birthday in the building when you last worked there, completely ignorant of the history in the halls and the ghosts of past legends. I’m old enough now to forget about the Barbie I’d been gifted and appreciate the way you make music come to life. It could be in a grand, historic studio, or the record player in our living room. It’s because of you that I know it was originally ‘Hey Jules’; McCartney’s words to Lennon’s son Julian at the time of his parents’ divorce. It’s because of you, that when I see the way you sing along with such belief in the lyrics, I take those words like fatherly advice.
Don’t carry the world upon your shoulder
For, well, you know that it’s a fool
Who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder
The second week of September is always eventful. It’s not just your birthday, but on the day before, the anniversary of you and Mum’s meeting. Yesterday was 33 years since. I wonder if on your fifth birthday, when Donny Osmond’s rendition of ‘Young Love’ was number one, you might’ve heard him sing about there being just one love for every boy and girl. As 23-year-old you walked up to the Coach and Horses pub at 3pm on the 11th, I’m sure you believed it to be true.
They say for every boy and girl
There’s just one love in this whole world
And I know I’ve found mine
It’s hard to believe that ABBA only scored 1 number one on the Billboard Hot 100, but it’s not because of its rise to the top in ‘76, on your 8th birthday, that I’m so familiar with ‘Dancing Queen’. I longed to be seventeen because of that song, and just as you’d expect from a family of musicians, when that age did come around for me, we did a piano rendition in the kitchen. As parents you filled our home with hopeful, joyous music. You let us dance with childish excitement, sit at the grown ups’ table at your gigs… It was in those crowded rooms with sticky floors where my brother and I would set up two chairs as a makeshift bed and sleepily sing along with the band. Tables of people we’d grown up in this setting with would unify in chanting the lyrics: ‘Friday night and the lights are low, looking out for a place to gooooo’. I like to think that, as I sat there around 8 years old watching you play this beloved song, it was once playing on the radio when you were the same age, only just reaching the top of the charts.
Feel the beat from the tambourine
You can dance
You can jive
Having the time of your life