Apparently, they've released a 25th anniversary CD edition of the very first ‘Now That's What I Call Music’ LP. It is often the case that ‘Now…’ albums are the very first albums children buy or are given as presents, and this relationship with people’s past has helped build a strong branding of the years.
Personally, it beggars belief why people are so obsessed with that nostalgia thing. Frankly, I would rather forget about being a shamelessly socially underdeveloped child thank you very much! It’s bad enough being a socially stunted adult, but at least I’ve now learned to repress my behaviour with ‘shame’. All my childhood memories are little more than a series of embarrassing tales going from one faux pas of immaturity to the next; why on Earth would I fancy to buying the souvenir soundtrack to a time I’d rather forget? In fact, just typing this here I am becoming flooded with the horrors of my childish behaviors. I can’t help it. Random memories have suddenly started shooting round my brain of social conventions I flaunted just because I was too young to understand. Like the time I was about eight, and I thought it might be an ingenious idea to make a bit of quick cash by going round houses offering a ‘carol singing’ service. We’d done carol singing at school and I’d seen other characters out and about doing it over the years and also collecting money for it. At the time I didn’t realise that this money was mainly being collected for charity rather than self-gain so this might seem a rather shameful exploitation on my behalf, but like I say, how was I to know this at the age of eight? It gets confusing as a kid. I probably reasoned it’d be like Trick or Treating or something.
I distinctly remember tapping on a neighbouring door without a single hint of self-consciousness. It only became apparent how badly conceived and ill-prepared my plan was when they actually answered it. How strange it would have been for them to open the door to a lonesome singing boy. I think I got through the first verse of “Away In a Manger” before things reached even lower depths.
My bemused audience looked at me expectantly and we both stood in silence for a second or two. Without the aid of our school book of carols to hand, it became apparent that I hadn’t a clue what any of the words were to subsequent verses. I thought this was supposed to have been easy. I couldn’t understand why weren’t they just going to fetch me some money?
Faced with a wall of silence, I could only assume they wanted more vocal delights; which was grossly unfortunate, being as I didn’t know any more. After my first unsuccessful attempt at monetary gain, the little professor inside my head reasoned that I would have to change my material to something I was more familiar with. So my next caller was treated to a rendition of the work of Shakin’ Stevens. Not even the Christmas Shakin’ Stevens song either - probably Green Door, something like that. It may sound bizarre, but the lack of festive theme wouldn’t have particularly mattered, as I think this whole spectacle happened around April time.
See what I mean? Absolutely clueless!
As you can imagine, the door-to-door service of singing Shakin Stevens songs was not a career I progressed very far with. This would have been my first lesson in the importance of market demographics.
On another occasion, I brazenly (and without a single ounce of irony) informed my God-Mother she looked like Cliff Richard. I mean, how terrible is that?! Once again, I showed no grasp of the intricacies of social politeness. At the time I think she might have given a jovial reply, something like “Oh I wish I had his money”; but it’s only now I really understand how offensive it is to tell a woman how comparable her features are with an old man. Such a childish observation wouldn’t have been so bad, but the whole incident is made even worse by the fact she actually did kind of look a bit like Cliff Richard. I shiver at the possibility that maybe other people had spotted this too, and it had become a sacred unmentionable thing between her friends. Yet there I was, blurting out the un-say-able, to a woman who amazingly still sends me money every birthday.
In fairness I don’t think the significance of understanding gender was high on my priorities at that age. In fact I don’t even think the significance of inter-species comparisons were a priority either, as around this time I also earnestly proclaimed to my Nan’s friend Doris, that she looked a bit like the character E.T. How terribly rude I must have seemed! At least I’m now starting to get a handle on where my patterns of haplessness with the ladies might have originated from.
I have to stop these tormenting memories right now. Other recollections are coming to mind thick and fast and I could easily go on and on and on – which perversely, would be a bit like the ‘Now…’ albums series itself. And if I were to continue, I’d have to rename this blog to something like “NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL CHILDHOOD MOMENTS THAT WERE INNOCENT AT THE TIME BUT SEEM RETROSPECTIVELY EXCRUCIATING AS AN ADULT” (or a.k.a ‘Reasons I wish I was slightly more successful in my one and only suicide attempt’).
Which is obviously something I’d never do. Because who gives a monkeys about such retro trinkets of regression? Certainly not me.
Nostagia eh? It just ain’t what it used to be.
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