• Main
  • Fiction
    • Going Back
      • One Hour Before
      • One week before
      • June 1978 – an extract from Going Back
    • Shore Leave
      • Shore Leave – an extract
    • A Little Bird Told Me
    • The Tip Run
    • Damnation’s Cellar
    • Tender Blue
    • The Flyer
    • Middletown Dreams
    • Morningside Crescent – an extract
  • Non Fiction
    • Dear Friends
    • 50 Musical Memories
    • Rediscovering Rush Intro
      • Rediscovering Rush
    • Left-handed under the Iron Curtain
    • Let’s do the show right here…
    • Home away from home – Alba
  • About
  • Blog
  • The 60at60 index
Richard Watt

50MM: 37: Ian Dury

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Richard

What I said back then [NOTE: I am not responsible for the consequences of some of these links being opened where others can hear]:

A true original, a one-off, and if this were a list of my musical heroes, then a much longer entry. But memories...

I've been trying to avoid dating things too much, principally for reasons of not having the hours required to research them - it should generally be reasonably clear when things happened. But this - this was 1978. So I was 16, and just at that perfect age for clever, witty songs which weren't afraid to swear. Quite a lot. At that time, music TV in the UK was pretty much restricted to Top of the Pops, that venerable institution, filled only with singles which had gone up the charts that week, and were tasteful enough to be put before the nation in the early evening; and The Old Grey Whistle Test (which deserves a memory of its own, really) late at night. And then, slowly but surely, some other things began to appear. 'So it Goes', 'The Oxford Road Show', one or two others, including a BBC series whose name escapes me for present, but which delivered a live performance into our living rooms at teatime on a Saturday. One weekend, I flick over to see who's on, and it's Ian. My mother comes into the room, intent on whatever it is mothers do when they're really checking up on their teenage children, and is met with 'Sex and Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll' and 'There ain't half been some clever bastards'. "Charming," I hear from behind, as the door is closed. With impeccable timing, the Blockheads launch into 'Plaistow Patricia'. I'm certain I really did hear this on the BBC at teatime on a Saturday - of course, it might have been bowdlerised, but this is Ian Dury we're talking about. The shame is, that he was the kind of bloke to have utterly charmed people like my parents. I resolve not to automatically dislike whatever my children find entertaining when they're sixteen.

Oh, and if anyone knows where I can get hold of the South Bank Show edition, with the coruscating 'Fuck off Noddy' in it, please let me know...

What I think now:

Well, ‘Fuck Off Noddy’ is on YouTube, of course (WARNING – very much not safe for work link right there.  Probably not really safe for home viewing, either.  But bloody funny.) – no sign of the South Bank Show, though. And that first clip suggests that my memory is faulty, if it was indeed 'Sight and Sound in Vision' from 1977.  But I know 'Bastards' was played, and it was 1978.  Blockhead music still gets a regular airing; I generally assume that I’m the only person in Prince George listening to Ian Dury, possibly the only one in BC at times, but I like to try to educate wherever I go…

The boys know some Dury, and – of course – love the gleeful silliness and musical exuberance of it all.  They even understand the accent, most of the time.  I’m perilously close, of course, to being made to live up to my resolution there – only another year to go before Cam is 16.  Right now, he mostly listens to the same kind of stuff I listen to, and there’s definitely an essay in that.  I don’t hear him endlessly repeating stuff I can’t bear to listen to, but if I do, I hope I can make good on my promise…

Since then:

There’s a terrific Ian Dury compilation on my iTunes; I saw a documentary some years back, which featured Upminster quite heavily, and made me nostalgic for a different part of my childhood, and there’s a movie.  Which I can’t decide if I want to see or not.  Not that it’s easy to get hold of out here.

Posted in 50 Musical Memories, Writing |
« 50MM: 38: Buzzcocks
50MM: 36: Elvis Costello »

Richard Watt

  • About
  • Home page

Archives

  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • December 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2016
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • December 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • March 2009
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005

Categories

  • 50 Musical Memories
  • 60at60
  • Beatles
  • Dear Friends
  • Music
  • Pink Floyd
  • Rediscovering Rush
  • Shore Leave
  • Tangents
  • Work in Progress
  • Writing

Categories

CyberChimps WordPress Themes

© Richard Watt