Over recent weeks I have given a brief description of where the town is, what it’s famous for, and other trivia associated with the place. This week you’re not getting that. Tough! You’ll have to look up wikipedia on this link!
Instead, a brief explanation of the verse above:
During the Second World War servicemen were allowed to send Forces Mail home free of charge but they were restricted in what they could write. They could not say where they were (most did not know anyway!), what they were doing, and they were mostly only allowed to send a pre formatted and part pre printed military postal form. This meant they had to be brief in what they wrote.
This led to a much used shorthand to impart what they wanted to say. Many will know of the acronym SWALK which meant “sealed with a loving kiss”. Other acronyms can be found here.
NORWICH was (K)nickers off ready when I come home!
Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday gives us the chance to share familiar, and sometimes not so familiar, songs.
If you fancy sharing one of your favourite songs you can find out how to participate, and also listen to all the great entries, here.
This weeks prompt gives me the chance to pick one of my favourite groups again, The Hollies. I bet I’m not alone in choosing this song either!
“Stop Stop Stop” is notable for being one of the few recordings by the group that feature Tony Hicks playing the banjo, and was the only song with that instrument to be performed live by the group. Actually, for the original recording, the banjo was tuned to the standard guitar tuning and a delay was introduced which made it sound like a balalaika. Only later did Tony learn to play the traditionally tuned banjo.
Here, Graham Nash explains how the song came about:
I can empathise totally, having encountered an alluring Turkish belly dancer in my youth – and that’s all the details you’re going to get folks!
Thanks again to Jim Adams, who hosts Song Lyric Sunday and gives us the chance to share lots of familiar, and some not so familiar, songs. This week he’s asked us to share Duets.
If you fancy sharing one of your favourite songs you can find out how to participate, and also listen to all the great entries, here.
What I’m sharing with you this week is SEX!
Every time I see this couple singing together it’s almost as though they are making love on the stage. OK, they don’t really make love, but their body language, their eye contact, their mannerisms, all make me imagine lascivious speech bubbles and thoughts drifting between them.
The couple that I’m describing are Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham and it’s only natural that they should have a very close bond because they attended the same school, but a year apart. They started a relationship in 1966, and moved to Los Angeles in 1971. They recorded an album together before joining Fleetwood Mac in 1975 after Mick Fleetwood called Buckingham, inviting him to join the band. Buckingham refused, insisting that Nicks and he were “a package deal” and he would not join without her. The group decided that incorporating the pair would improve Fleetwood Mac, making the British band into an Anglo-American one. The first rehearsals confirmed this feeling, with the harmonies of the newcomers adding a pop accessibility to the hard rock. Their intimate relationship had broken down by 1977. The break up was chronicled in a number of songs written by the two, such as “Silver Springs” and “Dreams” by Nicks and “Go Your Own Way” and “Second Hand News” by Buckingham.
I suppose that most of their work together does not constitute a duet as they are singing accompanied by other band members, however, the first offering is definitely a duet, and shows off Lindsey’s consummate skills as a guitarist. He is one of my favourites.
This week I am kicking against the traces and am not giving you any lyrics. I am, instead, offering you a few choices of fantastic singing, with SEX!
I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Never Going Back Again
Bleed to love her
Landslide
I could go on and on because I do so love these two singing together, but I’d better go and get some sleep!
Sting, the lead singer of the The Police, attended St Cuthbert’s Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne. As a young man he visited nightclubs, such as Club A’Gogo, to see all the groups he could, including Cream and Manfred Mann, who influenced his music. After working as a bus conductor, a building labourer and a tax officer, he attended Northern Counties College of Education (now Northumbria University) from 1971 to 1974 and qualified as a teacher. He taught at St Paul’s First School in Cramlington for two years.
At night he performed jazz with The Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit. It was whilst playing with the Phoenix Jazzmen, wearing a black and yellow hooped sweater, that he gained the name Sting.
He no doubt experienced situations, whilst teaching, that mirror the words in the song. It must be incredibly difficult for all young teachers to manage situations in schools where the hormones of youth are working overtime. The reference to Nabokov, at the end of the song, refers to the novel he was most famous for, Lolita!
Without further ado here is Don’t Stand So Close To Me. I hope you enjoy it!
Young teacher the subject
Of schoolgirl fantasy
She wants him so badly
Knows what she wants to be
Inside her there’s no room
This girl’s an open page
Book marking she’s so close now
This girl is half his age
Don’t stand so close to me
Her friends are so jealous
You know how bad girls get
Sometimes it’s not so easy
To be the teacher’s pet
Temptation, frustration
So bad it makes him cry
Wet bus stop, she’s waiting
His car is warm and dry
Don’t stand so close to me
Loose talk in the classroom
To hurt they try and try
Strong words in the staffroom
The accusations fly
It’s no use
He sees her
He starts to shake and cough
Just like the old man in
That book by Nabakov
Thanks again to Jim Adams, who hosts Song Lyric Sunday and gives us the chance to share lots of familiar, and some not so familiar, songs. This week he’s asked us to share Duets.
Photo by Nadiya Ploschenko at Unsplash.com