Ahoy, ahoy, Len see a sty /
Ahoy ahoy, barman and soda

Into The Valley - The Skids.

Peas sure sound divine.

“And we sang, a song that I can’t sing anymore” - Divine Comedy’s lyric in Our Mutual Friend after the people with the rights to the Walker Brothers classic said no.

Erm, that’s what I meant. I was fooled by connecting it to EFC’s stadium move. Right, I’m off to burn my Bowie Reference Club membership card in disgrace.

And there’s this magnificent moment. vm.tiktok.com/ZNRdrt9Mo/

I’m singing it in my head now, and it seems to have the same chorus as Gimme Gimme Gimme.

There’s a great account of the whole story in the book Lost Generation by David Tremayne, about three potential British F1 world title contenders who died young, within four years of each other, in totally avoidable and tragic circumstances. www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/produc...

Fabulous thread Andy. As soon as you mentioned 1975 in your first post I thought ‘this is going to be about Hill’. I don’t have nearly as clear a memory of it but it had a big impact on me; I was just getting into F1 and soon became aware that the loss of not so much Hill but of Tony Brise.

Ah yes, those lovely chaps Bin Salman, Al-Thani, Mugabe, Amin, Gaddafi, Khomeini, Assad....

The ones who still can are worth calling out too. Brett Anderson f/ex has never sounded better. And Paddy McAloon, when he put out a new song on YouTube a few years back, sounded just like he did at 23 despite all his major health issues.

There were a few major label
pretty-boys-with-instruments groups that flunked miserably despite big-budget, Smash Hits-friendly launches IIRC. Perfect Day and The Roaring Boys come to mind.

Having said that, bands that *do* properly break up, never to return - Talking Heads, R.E.M, The Sundays, The Smiths - retain an air of mystique and tremendous longing among fans. So yeah, i can see that.

For bands whose appeal is primarily to teens/students, it's literally the career playbook. Split up once the audience moves on (and you hate each other), then 20 years later get back together for lucrative tours once that same audience is older, nostalgic for lost youth, and with disposable income.

Fear Of A Black Thanet.

I mean, what the hell does "Running With The Night" mean? It's like some Chat GPT construction from various Pat Benatar, Bryan Adams, Kiss etc song titles.

I hated that record. Clearly a case of Lionel's record company telling him to make it a bit more FM rock, with some 'Beat It' guitar, to get it past the MTV gatekeepers. Dreadful stuff.

At least he’d have described the bus in great detail as it passed by. Oh, not Brian Johnston?