Eating cornflakes with George

Not many people remember the first song they downloaded off the Internet. Almost everyone remembers the very first album they ever got though. I find this funny.
However who can remember the very first song that stuck with them? Go back and think. What is the first song you remember? Not what your mother used to sing to you but what you actually remember hearing on the radio or television.

Interesting huh?

Being young and only really being fascinated by bright colours, cartoons and trampolines, music was not a thing that would of been noticed for me. I was too busy playing on the gym, running around the farm and watching TV to even take any notice. Your consciousness plays funny tricks on you and then one day. Blam! It hits you like a stone and you sit up and take notice. So when I think back to when I was young and songs that affected me growing up, there were a few that really stick in my mind as a child.

I remember my very first song. Almost like it was yesterday. It was 1984 and I was 5 years old. Living in Australia in a town called Lismore in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales. I was staying at my Grandmothers house and recall waking up one morning and going out to the kitchen table to have my daily dose of cornflakes and to watch Masters of the Universe on TV. In the kitchen was an old grey Phillips radio that could play one tape in the centre and it sat on the window sill. My dad switched the radio on and out belted 'Karma Chameleon' by The Culture Club. The tune was catchy, the new romantic style was electric and the lyrics were easy to sing to.

Now a lot of people would be thinking what a flakey song, To be fair, it is. But it broke alot of records at the time. The lead Singer Boy George or George Allan O'Dowd as his mum referred to him was a bit of a legend already in the London music scene and had sung with a few previous bands and hung out with Malcolm McLaren ( No relation ). They were the first band to have 3 top 5 hits in the US and UK at the same time on their debut album since The Beatles and then they followed that up with there second album 'Colour By Numbers' and repeated the feat. Not bad for flakey.

Now I have gone off track a little............

Anyway, this has started me thinking about first times and experiences and what music was playing when big events occurred in my life. So you know the first song I remember was Karma Chameleon and you know my first album was Slippery When Wet by Bon Jovi ( if you read my first blog ), but what else indirectly affected me growing up? When mum and dad broke up, I remember a lot of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Carole King. I used to love listening to Frankie Goes To Hollywood and especially the album Welcome to the Pleasuredome. The first side of that cassette was gold. 2 tribes, Relax, The World is my Oyster. Such a great band and like The Petshop Boys was well ahead of its time. I wanted the "Frankie Says" T-shirt and I used to dance around the living room to the album.  Thankfully once I saw the video to Relax ( as linked above ) I decided to look elsewhere for my musical influences as I knew that sort of thing was not my cup of tea.
Carole King on the other hand was the consumate 'Mother Music' and almost every housewife and working mother had the LP of Tapestry. Mum listened to this album all the time like it spoke to her and gave her some sort of cathartic release from her daily grind. God, I got sick of that album!! Years later I actually brought the CD for mum for Mothers Day and like a good son copied it onto my iTunes before handing it on. Now that I was older, I could appreciate the songs and the writing and it is a really good album.I also must admit she is/was a fantastic songwriter and in her day a decent looker too.

In 1985 I has turned 7 and was discovering not only my love for all things rugby but music had distinctly taken a major part in my life. Sitting in the lounge on a Sunday afternoon in what I believe was a relatively warm winter and seeing all these bands playing on the television. My mother getting excited because some famous band by the name of Led Zeppelin had reunited for this thing called Live Aid and there were lots of other singers, rockers and rollers amongst them. I can recall it like it was yesterday seeing Mick Jagger strutting around on stage with Tina Turner singing 'Its only Rock n Roll ( But I like it )' Ahhh the memories.

Around this time in school I met lots of interesting characters but none really who connected to me on a musical level. There was one girl named Penelope who had a similar taste in music as me ( in saying this I was 7 or 8 and only had one tape ) so we used to sit in the classroom bays at school and discuss our favourite Bon Jovi songs. She was pretty much the first actual 'Girl' friend I ever had and I was pretty sweet to her when she was around. I always wondered what ever happened to her?

This will be a bit of a continued theme over the next few posts so bear with me people as I am actually building to quite a specific point about things. In the mean time let me know what the first song you remember is or even your first album.

Until next time guys take care and rock on \m/ \m/