[MichaelA]

By chance, I just heard the first song I ever fell in love with on the radio.

I thought it might make an interesting thread on here, if anyone wants to chip in with theirs.

Old git that I am, in 1968 I was in Primary School when ‘Everlasting Love’ by Love Affair came out. I used to buy a comic style publication that had all the lyrics to chart songs of the time and remember learning all the words to this. Anyone know/remember what that was called?

The lead singer, Steve Ellis, has an amazing white boy sings soul voice, but the hook chorus - which I can analyse now, but not back then - is the simplest descending triplet against changing chords that completely tore at my young heart. At the time I thought it had to be the best song ever. For reasons of nostalgia, it is still up there.

On looking it up now, I was a bit sad to see that the band, Love Affair, didn’t write the song and neither did any of them actually play on it - the record company hiring session musicians for that. Only the vocals from Steve Ellis are courtesy of Love Affair. But they were all just literally kids. Not bad to be 17 and have a number one!

Despite the manufactured element, it’s all the same a fantastic pop/soul track that literally still tears my heart out - and so reminds me of my first ever crush, on a girl called Jennifer. But alas, was not to be, ha ha!

I’d be fascinated to hear what was your first stand out song, even though you’re likely to be looking at decades different to mine. It’s the seed of why we all fell in love with music after all. 😉

[CaliaMoko]

I can't pinpoint one particular song. A few that stand out in my mind as early memories of songs playing on the radio--mostly novelty types that would appeal to kids, because these are from the time when I was about age 8-12.
Tom Dooley
Little Nash Rambler
Itsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini
Splish Splash
Sloop John B
My Blue Heaven
Witch Doctor
Lollipop
Purple People Eater
Tan Shoes with Pink Shoe Laces
and many more....

[PaulAds]

Ooh…great idea for a thread!

I couldn’t think of any song that I could say I’d fallen in love with, but…

When “Grease” was the covid-19 of 1978, I remember a girl called “Lynn” crying because she’d forgotten to bring her ‘45 of John Travoltas “Sandy” to play at the lunchtime school disco that I never attended. I remember thinking “she must really like that record” and “she is undoubtedly insane” in equal measure.

When I was 12, I remember hearing “all out of love” by Air Supply and what struck me was wondering what could make you feel like that. I spent the next decade or so failing to find out.

The song that really cemented my feeling of being a stranger on my own country/planet was hearing Elton John’s horribly clumsy re-working of his own lamentable “candle in the wind” at Princess Diana’s funeral. I was at work, and watching the staff gathered around the TV for their mass psychosis karaoke grieving session made me feel like I had a furball in my throat.

When I dared to venture that I saw “the peoples princess” differently to how they all did, they all looked at me like I’d just crawled out of an apple.

Fast-forwarding into our modern-day dystopian nightmare…I just watched a load of ghastly 80s songs I didn’t like from ghastly 80s movies I never watched on some cobweb-drenched music TV channel I rarely frequent…and I felt a twinge of sadness, because i have always appeared to be completely at odds with how everyone else seemed to be feeling.

Eventually, I changed the channel, stumbled onto BBC News and they exacerbated my melancholy exponentially…for which I have to pay them by way of a license fee.

In hindsight, I think it’d be best to try to find stuff to love…even if it’s a little bit shit…unless you fancy a lifetime of increasing alienation and bafflement.

Glad to get that off my chest. I feel much better now 😀

[MichaelA]

Amusing as always @PaulAds  but enjoying the odd flutter as I do, I’m going for ‘In The City’ by The Jam as the first song you really fell in love with!

@CaliaMoko, yeah ‘polka dot bikini’ is one of the most innocently fun songs of all time!

Come on folks, don’t be shy, keep ‘em coming. (I can’t find Jennifer on Google by the way. That ship has sailed. 😀 )

[pompeyjazz]

A very interesting and entertaining thread. My earliest song recollection was "My Boy Lollipop" by Millie Small. I just checked and it was released in 1964 so I must have been about 3 at the time.

I guess that the first song that I really fell in love with was the B side to The Beatles single "Ticket To Ride" It was titled "Yes It Is" There was something about the close vocal harmonies and the violin guitar that I just fell in love with and I love that song to this day.

Another one that I was obsessed with was "Jeepster" by T-Rex (1972) In the days before endless music on demand, the only way to listen to you fave tunes if you hadn't got the disc was to try and listen in to Luxembourg 208 on a wonky signal or hope that they would play it on Top Of The Pops but my Dad banned TOTP for a couple of years around that time - Too many men wearing glitter I think 

BTW - That mag with all the lyrics in was called Disco 45 as far as I can recall @MichaelA

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/mag-a-zone/disco-45-songbook

Great thread

[MichaelA]

Hi @pompeyjazz, yes that was definitely one of those lyric mags, ta. I now remember something else early 70s called ‘Fab 208’ too, which was linked to their radio station I think. Most of the songs I learned were taped off a tinny transistor radio onto a cassette player. That was the nearest we got to ‘streaming’ back then. 😀

Yep, and T Rex were great in their day too. I was a big ‘Ride A White Swan’ fan! I’d be more than happy to come up with that catchy riff even now.

[Viscount Cramer & His Orchestra]

Hello gang....all the old faces!
Just thought I'd chip in on this although it's a bit difficult to sort real memory out from fantasy memory sometimes. For example I always remember watching the Beach Boys in their stripey shirts singing 'Barbara Ann' in 1964 but know that i couldn't have because i have a real memory of us boys all trooping to a neighbour's house to watch the '66 World Cup Final because we didn't have a telly, so the Beach Boy thing came later...
i couldn't pinpoint any one song really but it was probably something like 'Sugar Sugar' by the Archies or 'Im A Believer' by The Monkees or One Wheel On My Wagon but I'm Still Rolling Along.
Funnily enough Pompey I was also exposed to My Boy Lollipop which my sister who is Five years older than me had. She was also a big Beatles fan and had all those old Parlophone EPs and singles. I remember being quite taken with Things We Said Today which was the B side of A Hard Day's Night (just had to look that up).
Another contender which she also owned was 'A World Without Love' by Peter and Gordon.
Wish I could have come up with something cooler like Michael A but I suspect that, as a man with a bent for storytelling, he has carefully reinvented his past and his real first time love was something like 'Puff The Magic Dragon'
Nice to see you all!

[PaulAds]

Hello Ian @Viscount Cramer & His Orchestra brilliant to hear from you.

Hope you’re keeping well.

These stories are great…I’d love to hear some more…c’mon folks 😀

[MichaelA]

Hi @Viscount Cramer & His Orchestra, nice to see you popping in. But damn it, you may have seen through my cunning plan to fool the world about the ‘coolness’ of my youth! 😳 But now I am outed, I confess to always listening to Ed Stewart’s ‘Junior Choice’ every Saturday morning and lapping up all the novelty tunes he played. Such classics as ‘Runaway Train Went Down The Track’ and ‘The Old Woman Who Swallowed A Fly.’ But my favourite of this bunch was undoubtedly ‘A Mouse Lived In A Windmill In Old Amsterdam’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fg7w49UnGA

If only songs like these were still popular and money making - I think I could definitely have a crack at stuff like that.  I’m definitely not cool anymore!

Anyone else like this old corny stuff? 👍

[PaulAds]

Hi @Viscount Cramer & His Orchestra, nice to see you popping in. But damn it, you may have seen through my cunning plan to fool the world about the ‘coolness’ of my youth! 😳 But now I am outed, I confess to always listening to Ed Stewart’s ‘Junior Choice’ every Saturday morning and lapping up all the novelty tunes he played. Such classics as ‘Runaway Train Went Down The Track’ and ‘The Old Woman Who Swallowed A Fly.’ But my favourite of this bunch was undoubtedly ‘A Mouse Lived In A Windmill In Old Amsterdam’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fg7w49UnGA

If only songs like these were still popular and money making - I think I could definitely have a crack at stuff like that.  I’m definitely not cool anymore!

Anyone else like this old corny stuff? 👍

No 😀

[MichaelA]

No 😀

Misery guts! 😉

[MichaelA]

I suppose that’s also a ‘no’ to the ‘Kids Novelty Song Challenge’ I was going to suggest at the next Zoom meeting ☹️

[PaulAds]

I suppose that’s also a ‘no’ to the ‘Kids Novelty Song Challenge’ I was going to suggest at the next Zoom meeting ☹️

I think that’s a great idea…count me in!

[Jamie]

I too am unable to single out one song. I loved The Beatles, and I put the opening chord of hard days night down to my unnatural interest in unusual chords and chord structures, and long songs down to Hey Jude . One song I do remember as a ‘game changer’ for me was In the court of the crimson king by King Crimson in 1969, it still sounds amazing today. That led to a life long love of prog rock by ELP, Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, PFM and others. I long for the days when a short song was less than 8 minutes . I did listen to other music too and I have a very eclectic musical taste. I love rock, jazz, orchestral, opera and others…

Cheers
Jamie

[pompeyjazz]

Ah ! The kids novelty song challenge sounds an interesting idea. One to discuss on the Zoom chat on 8th April ?