Monday, May 23, 2011

1985: We build it up and build it up and build it up...


It's early 1985, and I'm my second term at university and of course by this time I've dumped all my first term friends and found a whole new lot, which meant a much more exciting life.

It's unavoidable that, isn't it? You get thrown together with people early on and much as you like them they're perhaps not quite what you're looking for. You meet people over the course of the term who are much more 'you' and the deal is done.

So me and my new pals are at a post-pub house party in what I recall was a very sumptuous student house, so sumptuous that it had one of those stand up record players, where you front loaded your disc and could see it playing. They didn't last long but as a space saver it was a marvellous idea.

Anyhoo, they only seemed to have two records. You Spin Me Round by Dead Or Alive had set the world alight and was hurtling towards the number one slot, while this little gem (see below) also went Top Ten, probably because we played it so many times that night it got in everyone's brain and they went out and bought it. I know I did.

It was a great party. I got horrilby drunk, we danced our heads off to just these two records in rotation and a good time was had by all. I remember red velvet curtains and heavy furniture.

The next morning however, I woke up on someone else's sofa and had flu so bad I was in bed for a week. I drank so much Just Juice I almost turned into an orange. And we had no central heating. Times were hard.

3 comments:

  1. Still a great record, and their songwriting exploits for others are somewhat undervalued. Always had a problem with how Nickolas Ashford spells his first name, though...

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  2. This reminds me rather grimly of my holiday job in a clothes shop near Leicester Square, where the manageress would put this on in heavy rotation ONLY if she wasn't playing 'Super Freak' by Rick James (one which I still wake up screaming in my sleep.). It was a close call which one I hated most.Blame Rhonda.

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  3. One man's trash, etc. It's like names. I hate the Madeleine.

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