Thinking about autumnal songs once again, here's a few (apart from Brand New Friend) that always make me think of the seaon of mellow fruitfulness, most likely because they were out at the time. I don't remember everything from every autumn, but when I hear these particular ones, I'm transported right back to my youth:
Let's start at 81:
Open Your Heart/Human League
Under Pressure/Queen and Bowie
It's My Party/Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin
O Superman/Laurie Anderson
Prince Charming/Adam and the Ants
Rock n Roll/Status Quo
I Go To Sleep/The Pretenders
It's 1982, I'm new at boarding school and for this term only, pretty damn miserable. Still love these songs now. It's good to look back and laugh.
Zoom/Fat Larry's Band
Hymn/Ultravox
Uncertain Smile/The The
Just What I Always Wanted/Mari Wilson
Mad World/Tears For Fears
All these from the autumn of '83, possibly one of the most fun times of my life, and definitely my very favourite autumn
A Blue Hat For A Blue Day/Nick Hayward
All Night Long (All Night)/Lionel Richie
The Love Cats/The Cure
Hey You (The Rocksteady Crew)
They Don't Know/Tracey Ullmann
.
Things are hotting up in '84:
Blue Jean/David Bowie
Forest Fire/Lloyd Cole
Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want/Smiths
One Night In Bangkok/Murray Head
No More Lonely Nights/Paul McCartney
The Never Ending Story/Limahl
Madame Butterfly/Malcolm McLaren
Together In Electric Dreams/Moroder and Oakey
Skin Deep/Stranglers
1885. Rebecca Fairweather, where are you now? Not much from this time, as I was obsessed with Woodstock and all that entailed, so this was the year I really started to look back 'other' music and stopped waking up to Radio 1, rather, waking up to Janis Joplin.
Nikita/Elton John
Rain/The Cult
Trapped/Colonel Abrams
My second favourite autumn: 1986
Walk Like An Egyptian/The Bangles
For America/Red Box
Sweet Freedom/Michael McDonald
Driving Away From Home/It's Immaterial
My least favourite autumn of all time: 1987. Penniless days having just moved to London doing a hellish job I loathed, and living way out in the sticks too. Dark, cold, miserable. All I wanted to do was be at home in the warm watching 15-to-1.
Hey Matthew/Karel Fialka
Love In The First Degree/Bananarama
Hazy Shade Of Winter/The Bangles
Need You Tonight/INXS
Orinoco Flow/Enya
Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi/Kylie Minogue
Probably the only songs that remind me of 1988. Far too busy a) working, b) moving c) going out far too much, hence they're the only songs I remember hearing constantly on pub jukeboxes
Let's finish at 1989, and Eye Know by De La Soul really caught my imagination, as did Just Keep Rockin' By Double Trouble, Voodoo Ray by A Guy Called Gerald and Got To Get by Rob n Raz feat. Laila K. Also: Sowing The Seeds Of Love/Tears For Fears.
After that, autumn kind of stopped being autumnal. Until now.
