Recent reviews and reminiscences from Popular, remixed.
Spandau Ballet, “True”, 30 April 1983
The High 80s of Wall Street and John Hughes movies started here, to my mind, and this era’s music was a step down from the few years preceding it. This particular single was Brother Music, again, so I can’t bring it to mind without remembering him singing it at random moments just to annoy me (not really, I guess, but I’m sure he found my annoyance amusing). Ah, ha ha, haaaaaaa, haaa...
I couldn’t have told you it was about Marvin Gaye, as at the time I barely knew who he was, so the whole musician-referencing aspect passed me by. Given where my head was at in 1983, I probably assumed they were referencing Marvin the Paranoid Android. So this was another “When Smokey Sings”, eh? Now I’m going to have to watch the video to find out... oh no, the sideburns! The shaved sideburns inflicted on every teenage boy in the mid-80s by Spandau-loving hairdressers... J’accuse, Tony Hadley!
A 3, I’m afraid, for probably quite irrational reasons. One of which is the irresistible temptation to conflate Spandau and Spandex.
New Edition, “Candy Girl”, 28 May 1983
Of little interest to me back then, and not much now. It charted in Australia but didn’t top them there (at the end of May 1983 we were just starting our “Total Eclipse” fixation). When you’re fifteen you don’t want to listen to prepubescent singers reminding you of how peepy-pipey you sounded a few years earlier—or at least I didn’t. Even if they were dressed beyond their years in the video. It would be ages before I got my first leather jacket... which has nothing whatever to do with my mark of 4, honest.
The Police, “Every Breath You Take”, 4 June 1983
I’m sitting here, looking at a 7” single picture sleeve identical to the one pictured (a little scratched from being jostled during so many moves), and noting that the vinyl inside looks pretty clean after all these years; if only I’d bothered to get my old turntable repaired, I would be listening to it right now. Unlike some key singles from 1983, this is one I never sold or swapped.
When this first came over the radio, it stopped me cold; I’d never heard anything like that progression of classical bass notes in a pop song. This was undoubtedly because I’d paid next to no attention to musical history in my decade and a half on the planet, but so what—it sounded new to me, and I wanted to hear it again and again. I phoned in a request to the station, as a lot of others must have, because they played it four or five times that afternoon. I remember this being the first time I knew, knew that a song was going to number one. (Which again shows how much I knew; in Australia it peaked at number two.) I bought the “limited edition” picture-sleeve single the very next time I was up in town.
I was too new to popular music to be bothered by contrived or convoluted lyrics (not that I pay them too much mind today), and too naive in love to realise how creepy their theme was. At fifteen, I was three years into an unrequited obsession with the prettiest girl in my grade, who had done nothing to deserve it other than be pretty. She was way out of my league, even though it was a small-town league, and I really should have known better, but at that age the mind doesn’t have much say in such matters. In hindsight, it was probably an unconscious defence mechanism, removing any need to deal with the possibilities offered by other girls at school who might have been interested; I had been the class brain on the margins for too long to notice any signs of interest, or to know how to deal with the complicated romantic manoeuvring that other kids seemed to take in their stride. (Seemed. You always assume you’re the only one.)
After years of keeping the secret between me and my friends, who were doubtless sick of hearing about it, I was starting to test my boundaries in the most painfully tentative manner by letting the girl know that I liked her (where “liked” meant the unthinking infatuation that only a flood of teenage hormones can unleash). She was a good sport, choosing not to turn me into a school-wide laughing stock. No, that was left to me, because I didn’t stop with letting her know.
Everyone in school listened to the AM station where I first heard “Every Breath You Take”, and every night kids from all over the south phoned in their requests to Bill the DJ. Getting on air was a rare coup in the days before mobiles and speed dial: it meant monopolizing the family phone (fortunately in an empty hallway in our house) and dialling the numbers repeatedly on a rotary dial—bad luck if it had a lot of 9’s and 0’s. Nineteen times out of twenty you’d get the engaged signal, and I gave up for the night more than once; but eventually I got through.
A friend and I had a plan for when we did. We were our grade’s biggest Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans, and were going to speak to Bill in character: him as Marvin, me as Zaphod. (The irony being that I was definitely a Marvin at that age, and never a Zaphod.) The challenge was that the station had a ban on silly nicknames for their phone-ins; my friend could plausibly claim that Marvin was his actual name, but Zaphod was going to be tricky.
Bill must not have been Hobart’s biggest Hitchhiker’s fan, or else he took pity on me, because when I swore to him off-air that Zaphod really was what everyone called me, he put me on.
“And on the line we’ve got... Zaphod. How’s it going, Zaphod?”
“Heyyyyyyy, BILL baby!”
Of course, my best Zaphod voice was still instantly recognisable to everyone in my grade, especially when it slipped once or twice during my improvised Hitchhiker’s-themed banter, as were the names of all my friends, duly name-checked in the traditional roll-call before my request played; and as was the name of the girl I dedicated it to.
I pray that the song I requested wasn’t this one. But it could well have been. If not on that first call, then on one of the subsequent calls where I kept up the shtick and kept the same dedication. (My friend got through as Marvin, too, and for a while we were a regular feature of the phone-in. The no-nicknames policy pretty much collapsed after that, which can only have been a good thing.) The themes of “Every Breath You Take”, in all their unhealthy glory, hold too much obvious appeal to timid teenagers in the throes of unrequited love. Which is a lot of teenagers.
Although I had guaranteed myself instant notoriety in the classroom, the fall-out actually wasn’t as embarrassing as I’d feared; I still had No Chance, but my peers weren’t going to think less of me for fancying someone half of them did as well. What the girl concerned made of it, I can only speculate, and cringe over.
Given that the song was such a personal milestone (millstone?), it’s odd that I never bought Synchronicity; I guess I was burning through too much cash with my new record-buying habit, and there was a 3-in-1 stereo to save for as well. I resisted the urge even when Fopp was knocking it out recently for three quid, because I couldn’t see it being what I’d once imagined it must be (a Masterpiece! Five Stars! Breathtaking!); not after a quarter-century more of exposure to comfy ol’ Sting. (Not a fan, really, but a copy of The Soul Cages moulders away on my CD shelves.) Some things are better left in isolation, and “Every Breath You Take” feels like one of them. Funny, that.
Back in the day I would have given this an 8 without hesitation, but age has wearied it to a six or seven; even if the memories it invokes are embarrassing, they’re intense, and that’s got to count for something. As for those lyrics and the message they send to hapless dedicatees, at least it wasn’t the b-side, “Murder by Numbers”.
30 June 2009