Birthday No. 1 Blues #12 - Phil Collins - You Can't Hurry Love

I am twelve and Phil Collins is number one in the charts.

Hard really to explain the Phil Collins phenomenon to anyone younger than 45. He’s the drummer in a prog rock band who becomes the singer when the singer quits to make mental music on his own. Collins decides to drag his band in a more commercial direction and then decides he can get even more commercial by doing stuff on his own. Initially, he goes down the sensitive singer songwriter route but then he needs a shitload of cash and decides he could cover a Supremes classic, do a cheeky retro video and clean up. And the bastard did. The decade is his from then on. Apart from Madonna and Michael Jackson, no one had the hits like Phil. Like Ed Sheeran today, you look at this weird little scrotum headed man and wonder, who the fuck’s idea of a pop star is this?

Nothing sums up the eighties better for me than the sight of Phil Collins taking a flight on Concorde to go and play his second nauseating turn of the day on Live Aid. The same fucking songs too.

Highlighting the plight of millions in Africa unable to find food to eat is a noble cause but it’s hard not to look at the whole Band Aid thing now and wonder who really did the best out of this? Was it those close-to-death kids or was it those millionaire tax exile rock stars given fresh financial clout by album sales revitalised by 20-minute slots at Wembley.

Bob Geldof lives in Chelsea.

Not that Band Aid, Live Aid or any of that has yet happened. I am 12. I almost certainly enjoyed the Phil Collins video because I am 12 and there are only four channels and my cultural exposures are limited.

So, what is 12 year old me up to.

Mainly I’m up to avoiding being bullied and beaten up at school. I’ve also started my own record collection with an eclectic assortment of initial purchases. Just singles. I haven’t got the money for albums. Men at Work (Down Under ffs), Toto (Africa, shoot me please) and then bizarrely a run of quite good stuff like New Order and Bowie and Eurythmics and Heaven 17. A slightly battered Fidelity record player makes all these songs start with a crackle that reminds me of David Coleman commentating live from some seventies sporting event. Loving that feeling of hearing the stylus spark sounds into being makes me dig out my parents small collection. Aladdin Sane becomes a firm favourite as (less coolly) does A Night at the Opera.

We go on holiday as a family on our own for the only time in our lives. Borth. A beautiful seaside village near Aberystwyth. Our family luck being what it is, it shits down the entire week. This does not seem to deter my dad’s dreams of moving to this part of the world.

I am not totally against the idea of this. Not least because I figure my school tormentors won’t be coming with us and also because it gives me a slightly better chance of surviving nuclear war which, I am increasingly convinced of at this time, is imminent. My dad’s idea of reassurance is to tell me that living within 10 miles of central London means we wouldn’t suffer, wouldn’t know a thing if the bomb hit.

I am not reassured.

Current Ranking of Birthday no. 1 – 4

Final Ranking of Birthday no. 1 –  N/A

What Should Have Been Number 1 instead that week – Heartache Avenue, The Maisonettes.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-t66drtfWs&list=RDh-t66drtfWs&start_radio=1

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