This is a video to a single from an album by Rough Trade called “For Those Who Think Young.” I’m pretty keen on the lead singer, Carole Pope; I dig her husky vocals and her facial expression when she sings. Her face often twists, ugly, and looks close to screaming in horror, then suddenly breaks into a plaintive sadness – a combination which reminds me of Joan Crawford before she was doped out on [insert any liquor here].
Interesting to note is that Carole Pope was lovers with another singer, Dusty Springfield.
That’s Dusty Springfield singing. I hope you already knew that, because it would mean you’re acquainted with her. If not, my sympathy lasts only long enough for you to rush out to the nearest Amoeba Music and find her out. Accompanying her on piano is Burt Bacharach. He’s the dude who wrote the music for the song.
Burt Bacharach, along with lyricist Hal David, also wrote “Walk On By” for Dionne Warwick. It was one of many collaborations between the songwriters and singer. She was their muse. Between them they released a dizzying amount of Billboard Hot 100 hits.
A lot of people from my generation (unfortunately) associate Warwick with two moments in her career: the schmaltzy #1 hit “That’s What Friends Are For” (which – laugh at it though you may – did raise a few million dollars for AmFAR) and her stint as co-host of infomercials for the Psychic Friends Network, along with celebrity psychic, Linda Georgian.
In the mid-1980’s, my sister Jacquie was Linda Georgian’s personal assistant and housemate. My Mom and I visited her at Linda’s house in Fort Lauderdale. When Linda wasn’t reading tarot cards for Liza Minnelli or casting out evil spirits from the summer home of David Hasselhoff, she liked to make her own jewelry, and she taught me how to string necklaces. She also read my aura and saw a lot of “lavender.”
I have been waiting for this week to arrive for a long time. The long awaited box sets by The Smiths have finally arrived. There are a lot of Smiths fans out there who have been counting down the days for these box sets to arrive. We all probably have about 4 or 5 all time favorite bands. Those bands that we love more than anything else. We collect everything we can by them. We have probably owned their albums on cassette, CD and LP. We have listened to their albums over and over again. We have watched the videos over and over again. We have read all we could about them. We have spent hours reading magazines and books about them. We then later spent years looking for articles and blogs on them online. Or spent hours and hours on message boards or chat rooms. We have seen them live in concert as much as we could afford to. Assuming the band actually
toured when we could see them. These bands are usually the bands that you were really obsessed with in your late teens and early 20s. At least that is how it was for me. The bands that you discovered in junior high that you then became obsessed with in high school and college. The bands that your older siblings or cousins got you into. The bands that your friends that were cooler than you found out about first. The bands that you can't imagine your life without. They are the soundtrack to our lives. We listened to them in our bedrooms late at night by ourselves. We later listened to them late at night with our best friends and girlfriends and boyfriends. We listened to them in the car with our parents and later with our friends. We listened to them on our first dates. We put their songs on compilations and mix tapes. We danced to their songs in our bedrooms by ourselves and later at clubs and parties and at friends houses. These are the bands that helped to create our favorite moments from our past. The songs that helped us to remember those memories.
