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 One
Side Two
Mis-Spent Youths
Holdin' on to sixteen as long as you can
Change is coming 'round real soon
Make us woman and man (John Cougar)
Side Two
Mis-Spent Youths
Holdin' on to sixteen as long as you can
Change is coming 'round real soon
Make us woman and man (John Cougar)
Track Eleven
All I want is to see you smile,
If it takes just a little while (Fleetwood Mac)
~ Don't Stop, 1977 ~
All I want is to see you smile,
If it takes just a little while (Fleetwood Mac)
~ Don't Stop, 1977 ~
I went round to Rachel’s house later in the day to tell her – because I thought I knew what was going on – that Billy had dumped her.
‘Did he say that?’ she asked.
‘No, he played Don’t Cry for me Argentina,’ I said, ‘and he threw this on the floor.’ Of course this was my version of a reality, somewhat flawed I now admit. It wasn’t the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But I meant no harm by it.
I didn’t know that the catch on the identity bracelet was faulty and always falling off. I just assumed… and so of course Rachel (who did know about the catch, but assumed when I said ‘he threw it’ that I was telling the truth)… put two and two together and came up with the usual teenage five.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.
But the waters were well and truly muddied. The next day just before Orchestra rehearsal she gave him the birthday record. It was that week’s number one. Not a great choice. It was Free by Deniece Williams.
There wasn’t a lot of grace in the giving or receiving. She handed him the record and the identity bracelet and said, ‘You might as well have these.’
There was no ‘Happy Birthday’ or anything. He looked shameful as he took the identity bracelet and said, ‘Oh, I was looking for that, thanks,’ not wanting to antagonise her more but not trusting her either.
He took the record home and played it and became even more convinced that he’d been dumped. The chorus more or less told him all he thought he needed to know: ‘But I want to be free, free, free. And I just got to be me, yeah, be me.’ Let’s face it, he’d had nearly two years out of this relationship and that was completely unprecedented. He must have known it would end someday.
So that was their first break up. And yes, I do still feel somewhat responsible. Not only because when they got back together again and went through the ‘whole story’ I didn’t come out of it well and so I was shunned for the rest of the summer term.
The break up didn’t even last a week. They studiously avoided each other for as long as possible. Which was three days. Long enough for the boys to add insult to injury by crooning the other song riding high in the charts at that time, Abba’s Knowing me, Knowing you. Whereas we girls were always circumspect if not sympathetic when one of our number was dumped, the boys revelled in it. And Billy and Rachel splitting up – hey, that was the highlight of the year. So everywhere Billy went in school for three long days he heard ‘Knowing me, Knowing you. Aha…’ crooned at him. He couldn’t even escape from it at the Italian café. We were on study leave for our O Grades at the time and I spent more time in the café than I should, I admit, but I never sat at a table with him. I kept in the corner, out of the way and watched his pain.
So I was there when they ‘made up’. This is how it happened. He was in there alone playing The First Cut is the Deepest into the ground. She came in. She sat at another table. She drank a coffee. He ignored her. She listened to his song three times in a row and then she went up to the jukebox and put in her own coin. The tension was palpable as the record dropped onto the turntable. The café was filled with the strains of Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill. I thought it was an odd choice. Shades of MacArthur Park. But when it came to the second chorus she sang it out loud: Grab your things I've come to take you home.
He looked up. It was clearly directed at him. He didn’t respond. As it finished, she got up, and we all thought she was going to leave, having been shunned. Instead she put on another song. It was Lonely Boy by Andrew Gold. She didn’t sing it but he finally looked up.
He got up, and like some scene out of a cowboy movie, he crossed the café and put his coin in the slot of the jukebox. The arm dropped. It was It’s a Game by the Bay City Rollers. ‘I don't mind but I don't make the rules’ was how I read it. But hey, what do I know?
Anyway, it was game on and she put on Where is the love we used to know by Delegation. Surely he couldn’t misinterpret that. I can't stop holdin' on to you.
He didn’t seem impressed. He put on In the City by The Jam. It was a totally new sound and expressed his raw emotion quite accurately. It was like a challenge. ‘I’m so OVER you,’ it screamed. And I know what you're thinking, You still think I am crap but it might have been the subtext he was going for: there’s a thousand things I wanna say to you.
Respect to Rachel, she didn’t give up. She responded with I wanna get next to you by Rose Royce. It was a bit obvious. It was also Disco plays New Wave. Maybe not her smartest move. That threw him a bit. He went up and chose Have I the right by the Dead End Kids. He was weakening. The message was clear: Have I the right to kiss you? You know I'll always miss you I've loved you from the very start Come right back I just can't bear it I've got this love and I long to share it Come right back I'll show my love is strong.
She took his Dead End Kids and top trumped them with the Detroit Spinners: Could it be I’m falling in love?
From where I was sitting this was better than the best tennis match you’d ever see. Before he got up to reply, the next song came on. She’d stacked the jukebox. I didn’t see it coming, he didn’t see it coming but you may well just shout ‘predictable’ when I tell you it was ‘their’ song. Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop.
He got up out of his chair. She got up out of her chair. They met in the middle of the café and, without putting rose tinted spectacles on it, yes, they fell into each other’s arms. Or at least they went into the mother of all kisses. At which point I left, knowing I’d just seen real romance in action. Watch. And. Learn.
So Billy and Rachel were back together. It was the big news of the summer term. It was as big as Star Wars, for us at any rate. It’s hard to believe now that Star Wars was quite as significant an event as it was when it first hit the screens, but believe me it really was. Think about it. We’d had Doctor Who and Star Trek on telly. That was it. Star Wars just blew us away. It was released on Saturday 25th May at the Dominion and we queued round the block for tickets. Billy and Rachel went together. Back together and all was right with the world.
I went with Laura but we kept a low profile because, well, I still wasn’t forgiven and she… she was still on a sticky wicket after the Scooby, Stevie debacle. Wherever we went that term boys would shout out at her ‘going for the full set?’ ‘Doobs is waiting for you’ or some such. I didn’t even warrant shouting at. But when we were together we got ‘Don’t cry for me Jane and Laura.’ And then the rumour went round that we were lesbians. I’ve already told you that these were days when being gay really wasn’t a ‘concept’, it was just a term of abuse thrown out without any thought to it. Boys were ‘poofs’ if they didn’t go along with the gang and girls were ‘lesbians’ as often as they were ‘slags’.
We just tried to keep our heads down. In fact, we got such a load of abuse in the queue for the cinema that when we got them and before we went in, we gave our tickets over to two boys from our history class. Looking back, that was probably what they were aiming at all along. So we never saw Star Wars on the opening day. We went the next weekend with Grant who was nursing an Achilles injury and couldn’t play sport. He was gutted because he was about to leave school and he’d never get another chance to win the sports cup. Laura said he was still ‘interested’ in me, but I wasn’t so sure. He certainly didn’t try to put any moves on me during the film, but she said that was simply because it was such an exciting film.
When we were walking to the bus-stop after the film he asked me if I fancied Billy. Laura replied, ‘Don’t be stupid, everyone fancies Billy.’
‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘I fancy him a bit myself’ and laughed.
We got on the bus. She went upstairs, hoping to grab the prized front seats. Laura went first and got on. Grant took my hand and pulled me up to the back seat.
‘Only joking,’ he said, and stuck his tongue down my throat.
‘So, does that mean we’re going out?’ I asked him.
‘D’you want to?’ he replied.
Oh how I wished I could play records to express my emotions. If only I’d known what my emotions were. I do remember that every time I kissed Grant I wished I was kissing Billy. And I don’t suppose that was a good thing. But we had another long hot summer ahead of us.
Discography
Deniece Williams, Free https://youtu.be/Zu0tt20UJag
Abba, Knowing me, knowing You https://youtu.be/iUrzicaiRLU
Rod Stewart, The First Cut is the Deepest https://youtu.be/mEbK8Y4IA2c
Peter Gabriel, Solsbury Hill https://youtu.be/_OO2PuGz-H8
Andrew Gold, Lonely Boy https://youtu.be/kBe-6EXBvaA
Bay City Rollers, It’s a Game https://youtu.be/kIYvi7pDPjs
Delegation, Where is the love we used to know https://youtu.be/NOsA1rbiIMM
The Jam, In the city https://youtu.be/tSnrACObJgQ
Rose Royce, I wanna get next to you https://youtu.be/5EO1nfSCKrU
Dead End Kids, Have I the right https://youtu.be/IpjnQjqo07Q
Detroit Spinners, Could it be I’m falling in love https://youtu.be/dln3ifkCfXs
Fleetwood Mac, Don’t Stop https://youtu.be/a8GJ9vvUH_w
‘Did he say that?’ she asked.
‘No, he played Don’t Cry for me Argentina,’ I said, ‘and he threw this on the floor.’ Of course this was my version of a reality, somewhat flawed I now admit. It wasn’t the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But I meant no harm by it.
I didn’t know that the catch on the identity bracelet was faulty and always falling off. I just assumed… and so of course Rachel (who did know about the catch, but assumed when I said ‘he threw it’ that I was telling the truth)… put two and two together and came up with the usual teenage five.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.
But the waters were well and truly muddied. The next day just before Orchestra rehearsal she gave him the birthday record. It was that week’s number one. Not a great choice. It was Free by Deniece Williams.
There wasn’t a lot of grace in the giving or receiving. She handed him the record and the identity bracelet and said, ‘You might as well have these.’
There was no ‘Happy Birthday’ or anything. He looked shameful as he took the identity bracelet and said, ‘Oh, I was looking for that, thanks,’ not wanting to antagonise her more but not trusting her either.
He took the record home and played it and became even more convinced that he’d been dumped. The chorus more or less told him all he thought he needed to know: ‘But I want to be free, free, free. And I just got to be me, yeah, be me.’ Let’s face it, he’d had nearly two years out of this relationship and that was completely unprecedented. He must have known it would end someday.
So that was their first break up. And yes, I do still feel somewhat responsible. Not only because when they got back together again and went through the ‘whole story’ I didn’t come out of it well and so I was shunned for the rest of the summer term.
The break up didn’t even last a week. They studiously avoided each other for as long as possible. Which was three days. Long enough for the boys to add insult to injury by crooning the other song riding high in the charts at that time, Abba’s Knowing me, Knowing you. Whereas we girls were always circumspect if not sympathetic when one of our number was dumped, the boys revelled in it. And Billy and Rachel splitting up – hey, that was the highlight of the year. So everywhere Billy went in school for three long days he heard ‘Knowing me, Knowing you. Aha…’ crooned at him. He couldn’t even escape from it at the Italian café. We were on study leave for our O Grades at the time and I spent more time in the café than I should, I admit, but I never sat at a table with him. I kept in the corner, out of the way and watched his pain.
So I was there when they ‘made up’. This is how it happened. He was in there alone playing The First Cut is the Deepest into the ground. She came in. She sat at another table. She drank a coffee. He ignored her. She listened to his song three times in a row and then she went up to the jukebox and put in her own coin. The tension was palpable as the record dropped onto the turntable. The café was filled with the strains of Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill. I thought it was an odd choice. Shades of MacArthur Park. But when it came to the second chorus she sang it out loud: Grab your things I've come to take you home.
He looked up. It was clearly directed at him. He didn’t respond. As it finished, she got up, and we all thought she was going to leave, having been shunned. Instead she put on another song. It was Lonely Boy by Andrew Gold. She didn’t sing it but he finally looked up.
He got up, and like some scene out of a cowboy movie, he crossed the café and put his coin in the slot of the jukebox. The arm dropped. It was It’s a Game by the Bay City Rollers. ‘I don't mind but I don't make the rules’ was how I read it. But hey, what do I know?
Anyway, it was game on and she put on Where is the love we used to know by Delegation. Surely he couldn’t misinterpret that. I can't stop holdin' on to you.
He didn’t seem impressed. He put on In the City by The Jam. It was a totally new sound and expressed his raw emotion quite accurately. It was like a challenge. ‘I’m so OVER you,’ it screamed. And I know what you're thinking, You still think I am crap but it might have been the subtext he was going for: there’s a thousand things I wanna say to you.
Respect to Rachel, she didn’t give up. She responded with I wanna get next to you by Rose Royce. It was a bit obvious. It was also Disco plays New Wave. Maybe not her smartest move. That threw him a bit. He went up and chose Have I the right by the Dead End Kids. He was weakening. The message was clear: Have I the right to kiss you? You know I'll always miss you I've loved you from the very start Come right back I just can't bear it I've got this love and I long to share it Come right back I'll show my love is strong.
She took his Dead End Kids and top trumped them with the Detroit Spinners: Could it be I’m falling in love?
From where I was sitting this was better than the best tennis match you’d ever see. Before he got up to reply, the next song came on. She’d stacked the jukebox. I didn’t see it coming, he didn’t see it coming but you may well just shout ‘predictable’ when I tell you it was ‘their’ song. Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop.
He got up out of his chair. She got up out of her chair. They met in the middle of the café and, without putting rose tinted spectacles on it, yes, they fell into each other’s arms. Or at least they went into the mother of all kisses. At which point I left, knowing I’d just seen real romance in action. Watch. And. Learn.
So Billy and Rachel were back together. It was the big news of the summer term. It was as big as Star Wars, for us at any rate. It’s hard to believe now that Star Wars was quite as significant an event as it was when it first hit the screens, but believe me it really was. Think about it. We’d had Doctor Who and Star Trek on telly. That was it. Star Wars just blew us away. It was released on Saturday 25th May at the Dominion and we queued round the block for tickets. Billy and Rachel went together. Back together and all was right with the world.
I went with Laura but we kept a low profile because, well, I still wasn’t forgiven and she… she was still on a sticky wicket after the Scooby, Stevie debacle. Wherever we went that term boys would shout out at her ‘going for the full set?’ ‘Doobs is waiting for you’ or some such. I didn’t even warrant shouting at. But when we were together we got ‘Don’t cry for me Jane and Laura.’ And then the rumour went round that we were lesbians. I’ve already told you that these were days when being gay really wasn’t a ‘concept’, it was just a term of abuse thrown out without any thought to it. Boys were ‘poofs’ if they didn’t go along with the gang and girls were ‘lesbians’ as often as they were ‘slags’.
We just tried to keep our heads down. In fact, we got such a load of abuse in the queue for the cinema that when we got them and before we went in, we gave our tickets over to two boys from our history class. Looking back, that was probably what they were aiming at all along. So we never saw Star Wars on the opening day. We went the next weekend with Grant who was nursing an Achilles injury and couldn’t play sport. He was gutted because he was about to leave school and he’d never get another chance to win the sports cup. Laura said he was still ‘interested’ in me, but I wasn’t so sure. He certainly didn’t try to put any moves on me during the film, but she said that was simply because it was such an exciting film.
When we were walking to the bus-stop after the film he asked me if I fancied Billy. Laura replied, ‘Don’t be stupid, everyone fancies Billy.’
‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘I fancy him a bit myself’ and laughed.
We got on the bus. She went upstairs, hoping to grab the prized front seats. Laura went first and got on. Grant took my hand and pulled me up to the back seat.
‘Only joking,’ he said, and stuck his tongue down my throat.
‘So, does that mean we’re going out?’ I asked him.
‘D’you want to?’ he replied.
Oh how I wished I could play records to express my emotions. If only I’d known what my emotions were. I do remember that every time I kissed Grant I wished I was kissing Billy. And I don’t suppose that was a good thing. But we had another long hot summer ahead of us.
Discography
Deniece Williams, Free https://youtu.be/Zu0tt20UJag
Abba, Knowing me, knowing You https://youtu.be/iUrzicaiRLU
Rod Stewart, The First Cut is the Deepest https://youtu.be/mEbK8Y4IA2c
Peter Gabriel, Solsbury Hill https://youtu.be/_OO2PuGz-H8
Andrew Gold, Lonely Boy https://youtu.be/kBe-6EXBvaA
Bay City Rollers, It’s a Game https://youtu.be/kIYvi7pDPjs
Delegation, Where is the love we used to know https://youtu.be/NOsA1rbiIMM
The Jam, In the city https://youtu.be/tSnrACObJgQ
Rose Royce, I wanna get next to you https://youtu.be/5EO1nfSCKrU
Dead End Kids, Have I the right https://youtu.be/IpjnQjqo07Q
Detroit Spinners, Could it be I’m falling in love https://youtu.be/dln3ifkCfXs
Fleetwood Mac, Don’t Stop https://youtu.be/a8GJ9vvUH_w
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.