The Soundtrack of Our Lives
A Double Album in Prose
by Annie Christie
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: For anyone who has ever got lost in music!
Swearwords: None.
Description: For anyone who has ever got lost in music!
Disc Two
Side One
Things Can Only Get Better
There are many things
that I would like to say to you
But I don’t know how (Oasis)
Side One
Things Can Only Get Better
There are many things
that I would like to say to you
But I don’t know how (Oasis)
Track Four
It took a lost weekend in a hotel in Amsterdam
Twenty-four gone years to conclude in tears (Lloyd C. Cole)
~ 1985 ~
It took a lost weekend in a hotel in Amsterdam
Twenty-four gone years to conclude in tears (Lloyd C. Cole)
~ 1985 ~
1985 saw a big change for me. I was offered a promotion which involved a transfer to London. I took it. How’s them apples for Miss Risk Averse? After the nightmare of 1984 I felt like making a clean break was, if not the best, then probably the only thing to do. Time to ‘reinvent’ myself. Time to let go. Move on. All the clichés in the world.
Madonna was charting with Like a Virgin, but I think my move was probably more Nellie the Elephant, which made a come-back by a punk band called the Toy Dolls. These were the days before the subtlety of ‘irony’ had really hit the music scene. I blundered my way like Nellie out of one circus, but straight into another one. When I arrived in London that January I was definitely a Foreigner, singing I want to know what love is.
I really connected with the lines I’ve travelled so far, to change this lonely life. I was waiting for life to happen to me. It took a while. Come Rachel’s birthday number one – which was I know him so well – I was able to give it some ‘ironic’ distance. Or so I told myself. I was so over all of them. Who was I kidding?
Nothing is so good it lasts eternally. Perfect situations must go wrong. But this has never yet prevented me, Wanting far too much for far too long.
Looking back, I could have played it differently, Learned about the man before I fell, But it took time to understand the man, Now at least I know I know him well.
I had no idea how true these words were going to be. But I was trying not to look back. I was trying to look forward though there wasn’t much on the horizon to look for.
It’s funny, however much you think you are looking forward, you can never predict the change of things, or when the big things happen. In 1985 I had no idea where Billy was so there was no way I could have sent him his birthday single by Phyllis Nelson, Move Closer, even if I’d thought it appropriate. Those days, Tears for Fears were bigger – in London life it was much more like Everybody wants to rule the world. I played Welcome to your life, there’s no turning back constantly on my way to work on my Walkman – I had the kind of salary that made owning a Walkman something I never even had to think about. I had all the ‘toys’ in those days. A top of the range hi-fi, my entire record collection bought again on CD, the works. But I still didn’t have the one thing I craved. Love. Tears for Fears dominated that May though I hated listening to the lines Say that you'll never, never, never, need it. Selectivity in the ‘meaningfulness’ of lines is probably a curse I’ve never got over. I told myself All for freedom and for pleasure, Nothing ever lasts forever and tried to believe it. But then I went back in time to Yazoo… I wanted to be more than a page in his diary, I knew the truth still was All I needed was the love you gave, All I needed for another day, And all I ever knew, Only you.
But I lectured myself to grow up. To move on. And then it happened.
It was July 13th 1985. I did something totally out of character. Well, I was pushed. Our work had been raising money constantly following Band Aid’s 1984 Christmas appeal – Do They Know It’s Christmas was a song that seemed to bring everyone together, and one of the things that was done was the purchase of 10 tickets for the Live Aid Concert, face value £25. These were then silent auctioned for a considerable amount more amongst my colleagues. We were all encouraged to dig deep but I obviously didn’t dig deep enough. I put in £50 and that was nothing like close. My boss Karen, a woman in her fifties, put in £250 and she got a ticket. She gave it to me.
‘What am I going to do with it?’ she said. ‘Pop music’s not really my scene.’
I think she was trying to get me ‘out of myself’ and ‘mixing’ with my work colleagues but it backfired. No one actually organised (or if they did they never told me) a group rendezvous. So I was on my own. The night before I convinced myself I wasn’t even going to go. I could watch it on TV, right? Then I felt bad at wasting Karen’s money –even though wasting money seemed de rigueur in the financial services sector in 1985 where we were all power dressing and big shoulder pads. So I left my flat in Surbiton and took the train to Wembley. All alone. Talk about that for risky behaviour! Mind you, I was all alone with 70,000 other folk!
I remember hearing someone on the way in chatting to their friend. She was a young girl, probably just out of her teens and she said in response to the question ‘do you know anyone else coming?’
‘My future husband.’
‘Really!’ Her pal replied in an astonished voice.
‘Yeah,’ said the first girl as she flicked her bleach blonde hair, ‘there’s 70,000 people here, so he may well be. I just have to meet him.’
It planted a seed in my mind. At the time it got me wondering if Billy was there. Or Rachel. Or Billy and Rachel. It would have so been their thing. I even looked out for them a bit, but I knew I was looking out for a life that was long gone. I sort of day-dreamed that Billy was standing beside me. I could believe it as long as I didn’t look round. There I was, lost in the music, and someone bumped into me. I looked round.
Don’t be daft, of course it wasn’t Billy. But I should start this story from at least the beginning, right? Or before the beginning. In case you weren’t there, or missed it on the TV. In case you had something better to do that day, like my boss Karen.
At midday the concert started with the words: ‘It’s twelve noon in London, seven am in Philadelphia and around the world it’s time for Live Aid.’ I realised for just a second I was right in the middle of a global phenomenon. And I thought of Zoom! for once in my lifetime, I was totally free, and decided to let my hair down. I let go of one more night and gave myself up to the music. Like Phil Collins, I finally realised I couldn’t wait forever
I was snapped out of myself when Status Quo opened with Rocking all over the world. It was immediately followed by The Style Council, which is what The Jam had become – to their shame, I sometimes think – though I guess it’s just proof that we all have to move with the times, but angry young Paul Weller becoming smooth on his way to becoming the Modfather rankled with me mostly. The set started with You're the Best Thing; a song I wanted to hate but just couldn’t. I could be a lot, but I know I’m not, still just about summed it up for me. Even though I never had him, I still yearned for the best thing that ever happened to me; and even though that hopeful young blonde girl, who could have been Laura a decade before, got me wondering if Billy was there – I knew that if he was he’d be with Rachel, or someone like Rachel, not someone like me.
I have to confess Paul Weller was losing his grip on me. The Big Boss Groove and Internationalists went right over my head though, but the passion of Walls Come Tumbling Down took me right back to the Modern World!
During the early part of the day I have to say I learned quite how it was to be alone in a crowd. The wait for the next live act that meant anything to me seemed interminable. Finally at about quarter to one Elvis Costello came onstage… It was a big disappointment though because he only played a cover of All You Need is Love.
I’d have gone home then and there if I could get out of the crowd, but there was no going anywhere that day. Just after three there was a bit of a surge when Sting came on. From Roxanne through Driven to Tears and the duet of Take a Look at me now with Phil Collins, to Message in a Bottle, In the Air Tonight it was definitely a Long, Long Way to Go for me, back to the 1970s. The emotion was palpable. I was trying to keep the pain down but when Every Breath You Take came on I just couldn’t take any more. I cried.
Sting was followed by Rick Springfield on video link – I didn’t know any of his songs but Jesse’s Girl and I didn’t think I could take that, so I looked to see if I could find a way out. When I turned round, I got the shock of my life. Standing there, right behind me, was a Rick Springfield lookalike. He smiled at me.
‘On your own?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ I replied.
‘I’m Mark,’ he said.
‘You’d better love somebody…’ he sang, along with Rick on the video link. He knew all the words. Oh, boy did Mark know all the words! He sang me through State of the Heart: I'm waiting here for you, In the state I'm in, I know your name
(Jane, I mouthed to him as he gave me a quizzical look.)
I told you mine, We stop and pass the time of day, You work in town, I work at night, That gives us six until seven to work this out
Do you believe in Kismet? I convinced myself that day that I did. That’s the power of live music, I guess. What could I do when Rick and Mark were singing ‘we all need the human touch.’ Especially when followed up by the lines You got some perfect image, Of the perfect man, You're a tough little sister, But you'll settle for a mister tonight, But you're running out of time.’
I decided that this was the risk I was going to take. Looking back, how could Mark have failed when he was able to steal chat up lines from the music that had defined my identity?
Suffice it to say, we got talking, as much as you can in a heaving stadium with music blasting in your ear and surrounded by a heaving crowd. I felt like, for the first time, I was really sharing music. There was Bryan Ferry reminding me I was a slave to love, but he paled into insignificance as Mark said
‘Hey, the next guy, you’re going to love him.’
He was right. I did. It was another video link to the States. And my first introduction to Bryan Adams. He blew me away. Mark didn’t have to do much, it was totally a case of right time right place syndrome. I was lost in the music and he picked me up and found me. Kids Wanna Rock was cool enough, but it was the next one that blew me away. Summer of 69. It was an anthem to youth. It rocked. Oh, when I look back now, That summer seemed to last forever, And if I had the choice, Yeah, I'd always wanna be there, Those were the best days of my life.
‘You wanna hear Reckless,’ Mark told me, when I said I’d never heard of Bryan Adams, ‘it’s the best.’
That may have been the most significant chat up line of my life. It was more or less inevitable from that moment on that I couldn’t resist the combination of Bryan Adams and Mark Davidson.
By the time U2 were up and rocking and making history I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on onstage. I’d been plucked out of the crowd by another member of it, and my life was taking a new turn.
I lost U2, and The Beach Boys and basically hung onto Mark’s every word for well over an hour until Queen came on. By which time Mark had given me a whistle-stop tour of his life – he was a quantity surveyor, but he also ‘worked concessions’ on big tours. He’d just come back from touring with Rick Springfield, he said.
Was I star struck? I don’t know. But when Queen struck out with Bohemian Rhapsody I experienced a strange surrealism. Part of me wished I was back in school that day in 1975, huddled round the tranny. Part of me wished those boys were with me now. How life had changed in a decade. I wanted to explain it to Mark, but I realised I didn’t have the words. I never got beyond ‘Wow, Freddie Mercury,’ at which point Mark hoisted me onto his shoulders to get a better view.
And it was only for a second that I pretended it was Billy’s shoulders I was sitting on.
I got down after We are the Champions and thanked him.
‘Hey, really, after this, come back to mine and hear Reckless,’ he said.
I got Reckless then and there and agreed. This wasn’t going to be like any other day in my life, so I guessed I’d better make the most of it. The Pretenders came on screen and I knew it was time for me to stop my sobbing too. Chrissie told me It is time for you to laugh instead of crying and I made my choice not to get back on the Chain Gang.
Then there was Bowie with Modern Love and Heroes, and it was all just washing over me by that time, knowing that when this finished, when inevitably it finished, I was going to do something really reckless.
And I did. I went home with Mark. Need I say more? He put the album on. And somewhere between One Night Love Affair and It’s Only Love, I lost my virginity. So why was it that Billy don’t be a hero was the song I woke up thinking about the next morning?
Madonna was charting with Like a Virgin, but I think my move was probably more Nellie the Elephant, which made a come-back by a punk band called the Toy Dolls. These were the days before the subtlety of ‘irony’ had really hit the music scene. I blundered my way like Nellie out of one circus, but straight into another one. When I arrived in London that January I was definitely a Foreigner, singing I want to know what love is.
I really connected with the lines I’ve travelled so far, to change this lonely life. I was waiting for life to happen to me. It took a while. Come Rachel’s birthday number one – which was I know him so well – I was able to give it some ‘ironic’ distance. Or so I told myself. I was so over all of them. Who was I kidding?
Nothing is so good it lasts eternally. Perfect situations must go wrong. But this has never yet prevented me, Wanting far too much for far too long.
Looking back, I could have played it differently, Learned about the man before I fell, But it took time to understand the man, Now at least I know I know him well.
I had no idea how true these words were going to be. But I was trying not to look back. I was trying to look forward though there wasn’t much on the horizon to look for.
It’s funny, however much you think you are looking forward, you can never predict the change of things, or when the big things happen. In 1985 I had no idea where Billy was so there was no way I could have sent him his birthday single by Phyllis Nelson, Move Closer, even if I’d thought it appropriate. Those days, Tears for Fears were bigger – in London life it was much more like Everybody wants to rule the world. I played Welcome to your life, there’s no turning back constantly on my way to work on my Walkman – I had the kind of salary that made owning a Walkman something I never even had to think about. I had all the ‘toys’ in those days. A top of the range hi-fi, my entire record collection bought again on CD, the works. But I still didn’t have the one thing I craved. Love. Tears for Fears dominated that May though I hated listening to the lines Say that you'll never, never, never, need it. Selectivity in the ‘meaningfulness’ of lines is probably a curse I’ve never got over. I told myself All for freedom and for pleasure, Nothing ever lasts forever and tried to believe it. But then I went back in time to Yazoo… I wanted to be more than a page in his diary, I knew the truth still was All I needed was the love you gave, All I needed for another day, And all I ever knew, Only you.
But I lectured myself to grow up. To move on. And then it happened.
It was July 13th 1985. I did something totally out of character. Well, I was pushed. Our work had been raising money constantly following Band Aid’s 1984 Christmas appeal – Do They Know It’s Christmas was a song that seemed to bring everyone together, and one of the things that was done was the purchase of 10 tickets for the Live Aid Concert, face value £25. These were then silent auctioned for a considerable amount more amongst my colleagues. We were all encouraged to dig deep but I obviously didn’t dig deep enough. I put in £50 and that was nothing like close. My boss Karen, a woman in her fifties, put in £250 and she got a ticket. She gave it to me.
‘What am I going to do with it?’ she said. ‘Pop music’s not really my scene.’
I think she was trying to get me ‘out of myself’ and ‘mixing’ with my work colleagues but it backfired. No one actually organised (or if they did they never told me) a group rendezvous. So I was on my own. The night before I convinced myself I wasn’t even going to go. I could watch it on TV, right? Then I felt bad at wasting Karen’s money –even though wasting money seemed de rigueur in the financial services sector in 1985 where we were all power dressing and big shoulder pads. So I left my flat in Surbiton and took the train to Wembley. All alone. Talk about that for risky behaviour! Mind you, I was all alone with 70,000 other folk!
I remember hearing someone on the way in chatting to their friend. She was a young girl, probably just out of her teens and she said in response to the question ‘do you know anyone else coming?’
‘My future husband.’
‘Really!’ Her pal replied in an astonished voice.
‘Yeah,’ said the first girl as she flicked her bleach blonde hair, ‘there’s 70,000 people here, so he may well be. I just have to meet him.’
It planted a seed in my mind. At the time it got me wondering if Billy was there. Or Rachel. Or Billy and Rachel. It would have so been their thing. I even looked out for them a bit, but I knew I was looking out for a life that was long gone. I sort of day-dreamed that Billy was standing beside me. I could believe it as long as I didn’t look round. There I was, lost in the music, and someone bumped into me. I looked round.
Don’t be daft, of course it wasn’t Billy. But I should start this story from at least the beginning, right? Or before the beginning. In case you weren’t there, or missed it on the TV. In case you had something better to do that day, like my boss Karen.
At midday the concert started with the words: ‘It’s twelve noon in London, seven am in Philadelphia and around the world it’s time for Live Aid.’ I realised for just a second I was right in the middle of a global phenomenon. And I thought of Zoom! for once in my lifetime, I was totally free, and decided to let my hair down. I let go of one more night and gave myself up to the music. Like Phil Collins, I finally realised I couldn’t wait forever
I was snapped out of myself when Status Quo opened with Rocking all over the world. It was immediately followed by The Style Council, which is what The Jam had become – to their shame, I sometimes think – though I guess it’s just proof that we all have to move with the times, but angry young Paul Weller becoming smooth on his way to becoming the Modfather rankled with me mostly. The set started with You're the Best Thing; a song I wanted to hate but just couldn’t. I could be a lot, but I know I’m not, still just about summed it up for me. Even though I never had him, I still yearned for the best thing that ever happened to me; and even though that hopeful young blonde girl, who could have been Laura a decade before, got me wondering if Billy was there – I knew that if he was he’d be with Rachel, or someone like Rachel, not someone like me.
I have to confess Paul Weller was losing his grip on me. The Big Boss Groove and Internationalists went right over my head though, but the passion of Walls Come Tumbling Down took me right back to the Modern World!
During the early part of the day I have to say I learned quite how it was to be alone in a crowd. The wait for the next live act that meant anything to me seemed interminable. Finally at about quarter to one Elvis Costello came onstage… It was a big disappointment though because he only played a cover of All You Need is Love.
I’d have gone home then and there if I could get out of the crowd, but there was no going anywhere that day. Just after three there was a bit of a surge when Sting came on. From Roxanne through Driven to Tears and the duet of Take a Look at me now with Phil Collins, to Message in a Bottle, In the Air Tonight it was definitely a Long, Long Way to Go for me, back to the 1970s. The emotion was palpable. I was trying to keep the pain down but when Every Breath You Take came on I just couldn’t take any more. I cried.
Sting was followed by Rick Springfield on video link – I didn’t know any of his songs but Jesse’s Girl and I didn’t think I could take that, so I looked to see if I could find a way out. When I turned round, I got the shock of my life. Standing there, right behind me, was a Rick Springfield lookalike. He smiled at me.
‘On your own?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ I replied.
‘I’m Mark,’ he said.
‘You’d better love somebody…’ he sang, along with Rick on the video link. He knew all the words. Oh, boy did Mark know all the words! He sang me through State of the Heart: I'm waiting here for you, In the state I'm in, I know your name
(Jane, I mouthed to him as he gave me a quizzical look.)
I told you mine, We stop and pass the time of day, You work in town, I work at night, That gives us six until seven to work this out
Do you believe in Kismet? I convinced myself that day that I did. That’s the power of live music, I guess. What could I do when Rick and Mark were singing ‘we all need the human touch.’ Especially when followed up by the lines You got some perfect image, Of the perfect man, You're a tough little sister, But you'll settle for a mister tonight, But you're running out of time.’
I decided that this was the risk I was going to take. Looking back, how could Mark have failed when he was able to steal chat up lines from the music that had defined my identity?
Suffice it to say, we got talking, as much as you can in a heaving stadium with music blasting in your ear and surrounded by a heaving crowd. I felt like, for the first time, I was really sharing music. There was Bryan Ferry reminding me I was a slave to love, but he paled into insignificance as Mark said
‘Hey, the next guy, you’re going to love him.’
He was right. I did. It was another video link to the States. And my first introduction to Bryan Adams. He blew me away. Mark didn’t have to do much, it was totally a case of right time right place syndrome. I was lost in the music and he picked me up and found me. Kids Wanna Rock was cool enough, but it was the next one that blew me away. Summer of 69. It was an anthem to youth. It rocked. Oh, when I look back now, That summer seemed to last forever, And if I had the choice, Yeah, I'd always wanna be there, Those were the best days of my life.
‘You wanna hear Reckless,’ Mark told me, when I said I’d never heard of Bryan Adams, ‘it’s the best.’
That may have been the most significant chat up line of my life. It was more or less inevitable from that moment on that I couldn’t resist the combination of Bryan Adams and Mark Davidson.
By the time U2 were up and rocking and making history I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on onstage. I’d been plucked out of the crowd by another member of it, and my life was taking a new turn.
I lost U2, and The Beach Boys and basically hung onto Mark’s every word for well over an hour until Queen came on. By which time Mark had given me a whistle-stop tour of his life – he was a quantity surveyor, but he also ‘worked concessions’ on big tours. He’d just come back from touring with Rick Springfield, he said.
Was I star struck? I don’t know. But when Queen struck out with Bohemian Rhapsody I experienced a strange surrealism. Part of me wished I was back in school that day in 1975, huddled round the tranny. Part of me wished those boys were with me now. How life had changed in a decade. I wanted to explain it to Mark, but I realised I didn’t have the words. I never got beyond ‘Wow, Freddie Mercury,’ at which point Mark hoisted me onto his shoulders to get a better view.
And it was only for a second that I pretended it was Billy’s shoulders I was sitting on.
I got down after We are the Champions and thanked him.
‘Hey, really, after this, come back to mine and hear Reckless,’ he said.
I got Reckless then and there and agreed. This wasn’t going to be like any other day in my life, so I guessed I’d better make the most of it. The Pretenders came on screen and I knew it was time for me to stop my sobbing too. Chrissie told me It is time for you to laugh instead of crying and I made my choice not to get back on the Chain Gang.
Then there was Bowie with Modern Love and Heroes, and it was all just washing over me by that time, knowing that when this finished, when inevitably it finished, I was going to do something really reckless.
And I did. I went home with Mark. Need I say more? He put the album on. And somewhere between One Night Love Affair and It’s Only Love, I lost my virginity. So why was it that Billy don’t be a hero was the song I woke up thinking about the next morning?
About the Author
Annie Christie is a pretty ordinary person, except that she was born Annie Christie and then married a man called Christie and so is still called Christie despite having taken on her husband’s name. She sometimes wonders if she should have called herself Christie-Christie: but who would believe that?
Born near Drum of Wartle in Aberdeenshire, Annie moved as swiftly as possible to a place with a less bizarre name – Edinburgh – but the bizarreness chased her and she now lives with her husband Rab in rural Galloway, with a Kirkcudbrightshire postcode. (That's Cur coo bree shire to the uninitiated.) She is an active member of the Infinite Jigsaw Project.
The Soundtrack of Our Lives is Annie's fourth McSerial written for McStorytellers.
Born near Drum of Wartle in Aberdeenshire, Annie moved as swiftly as possible to a place with a less bizarre name – Edinburgh – but the bizarreness chased her and she now lives with her husband Rab in rural Galloway, with a Kirkcudbrightshire postcode. (That's Cur coo bree shire to the uninitiated.) She is an active member of the Infinite Jigsaw Project.
The Soundtrack of Our Lives is Annie's fourth McSerial written for McStorytellers.