Take Your Mind Back - I Don't Know When

06 February 2006

I didn't think it was possible. But finally, after over 20 years...

I have found the Lost Song!!!

The genesis of the story: when I was very little and we lived in Sydney in the early 1980s, we always seemed to go on long car journeys on the weekend, and so I heard an awful lot of radio. There was one song in particular I was very fond of, that got alot of air play at the time. I didn't know anything about it, other than it was a lush, piano-heavy piece. I didn't know any of the words (I was barely more than a toddler at the time) and apparently my father didn't have it on any of his records (no CDs in 1982!). Eventually, it dropped off regular radio play, and I forgot all about it for twenty years. But it must have remained in some corner of my sub-concious.

Fast forward to early 2003...I'd been to lunch with a couple of co workers, and in the car on the way back to the office, the song came on the radio. I recognised it straight away, but unfortunatley they were chatting loudly, so I still couldn't make out any lyrics, nor the DJ announcing what the song was. And as they'd just treated me to lunch at Scratchleys, I really didn't feel I could say "Pipe down, I want to hear what this song is!"

Maybe I should have, because since then, finding the lost song has become an obsession. A nearly impossible one, as I didn't know who performed it, the title, or the words. None the less, I've run literally hundreds of song lyrics searches for what I thought the words might have been, and listened to an awful lot of hits and memories radio. Knowing that the song must've been released circa 1981/2, I've barely ever missed a radio stations "Cold Thirty" from that era.

No luck. And I'd basically resigned myself to the thought that I could well die without ever knowing what the Lost Song was.

Until Saturday evening. I was just listening to the local hits n' memories radio station because I was waiting for the news, when I heard those distinctive opening bars...I started shaking, unable to believe my search was at an end. In a further stroke of luck, there was a blank tape ready to go in the stereo, so I hit "record"...and now the song is mine till the tape wears out. Anyway, finally aware of the words, I ran a search that worked...and now I finally know that the song is "Real Men" by Joe Jackson (I can't believe I didn't recognise his distictive voice earlier!). And now I can buy the MP3. Somehow. I don't know how.


The song isn't as great as I remembered but I think it's still pretty good. And shows that even as a small child, I had good taste AND an awareness of gay issues (well, not really. Like I said I didn't know the words then).

Anyway, there's four points to be learnt from this:

1. Never give up on lost causes, a solution may come along when you least expect it;

2. Toddlers were much better off in years gone by listening to real music, before the days of kiddie bands;

3. Never promise your readers four points when you can't think of a fourth, and

4.

2 comments:

  1. im glad u finally found what the song was....

    ReplyDelete
  2. ooh, a profile! You should fill it in with your interests and what have you.

    The reason it said you needed to create one, is because you had the "blogger" identity button checked, not "other".

    ReplyDelete


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