Living in the Past

Dear James,

Article in The Guardian about the 40 years of Island Records or something, which probably means it's 20 years since my parents broke up, The Island Story compilation after 20 years of Island being my dad's near-parting gift after 17 years of marriage. I was just thinking about this song yesterday, as it's used here in Argentina as the theme tune to a very serious current affairs program. Actually, all current affairs programs are very serious. It's either that or the frivolity of bosomy women cutting apples in half while following the directions of Eduardo in Parana. But the whole thing got me wondering whether the music used for such programs as Panorama and World in Action in the UK might also be the work of some genius songwriters from the late 60s or, failing that, Jethro Tull. That World in Action theme has a certain Vanilla Fudge/Pink Floyd groove to it.

So much of our teens were spent being driven round Stockport listening to the likes of Jethro Tull, Buggles and Sparks. And generally making up our own lyrics for "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us". You might think that early 70s prog-funk would be too taxing on the simple minds of my sisters, but the beauty of Island was they had such a wide remit that any compilation had to include all the cheesy crap like Millie's "My Boy Lollipop" and Amazulu's "Too Big To be Forgotten". And between you and me, the latter was one of my favourite songs during the 1988 summer holidays. And if we turned the tape over before that silly Sparks song, we could skip U2 on the other side.