Memory Mixtape #3: This Old Heart Of Mine

I remember buying this single when I was 15 from a basement record store in town. I went out searching for it after hearing it on my favourite TV show. (It would later be featured on the soundtrack album, which I also bought.) Moonlighting, for those of you too young or deprived to recall, was a 4th-wall breaking detective romcom starring Bruce Willis as David Addison and Cybill Shepherd as Maddie Hayes.

Around this time, I was also somewhat obsessed with a Maddie of my own. She would often sit and chat with me on the school bus home. Although she seemed to use the longer version of her name with most other people, she never told me to stop when I called her Maddie. She was musical, like me, playing piano and violin. I played piano and tenor horn, though I was better at the brass than the keys. She was much better at the piano. Occasionally we'd meet in the music block and end up in a practice room where she'd show off on the piano and I would lust uncontrollably. In my head, I was David Addison and she was my Maddie Hayes. I'm not sure what the hell was going on in her head.

I clearly remember her telling me about how her legs were all downy because she hadn't shaved them that week. It was the most erotic thing anyone had ever said to me.

Around that time, I saw my own life as a soap opera. I think this came from the 4th-wall breaking in Moonlighting, and I often thought of day-to-day events as episodes with in-built cliffhangers. The end of term was like the end of a series. I clearly remember one end of term cliffhanger wherein Maddie and I got off the bus together and I was convinced I'd hinted at my feelings enough that she must have got the message... and surely on returning to school we would become an item. The following term was the greatest anti-climax ever.

Wracked with teenage insecurity, I couldn't ever ask a girl out directly, so the "does she / doesn't she?" nature of our friendship continued for the next few months until my mate Simon finally got sick of me whinging on about her and took it upon himself to ask her out for me. Except Maddie appeared to get the wrong end of the stick and thought he was actually asking for himself. Turns out she was interested in that... fair play to him: he wasn't. (I don't think I'd ever have forgiven him.) When he put her right... well, the alternative wasn't that appealing after all. I'll never quite understand why she spent as much time hanging round with me if that was the case, but such is teenage life.

Heartbreaking depression ensued and our friendship faded after that, but I carried the torch (among others) well into the 6th Form. This song always reminds me of her...

Maybe it's my mistake to show this love I feel inside

'Cause each day that passes by, 

You got me never knowing if I'm coming or going

All that aside: when it comes to pop perfection, This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You) is right up there with Wichita Lineman.