My Top ∞ Radio Songs #23: What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?

I worked on the Saturday morning show for two years while I completed my 'A' Levels, by the end of which I was virtually co-presenting the show... although it'd take another year or so to get my name on the schedule. I still wasn't getting paid, but then I was only in the building for three hours a week.

However, it was reaching the point now where I had to answer that crucial question above. Many of my friends had applied for university, yet although I was on track for good 'A' Level grades (I ended up with 2 Bs, a C and an E... in Art... so I guess that ruled out drawing comics for a living) I was adamant I didn't want to follow them. It was the old story: if you've been reading this blog for a while, you may have come to recognise the fatal character flaw I had as a teenager... I never wanted to do what everybody else was doing. Partly that was because I thought I was destined for bigger things, things I didn't need Higher Education for (after all, Steve Wright still hadn't replied to my demo tape... and my debut novel would surely be in bookshops by the middle of the 90s) and partly, if I'm brutally honest, it was parochial fear. Upping sticks from the safe, comfy, loving and supportive home my parents had always provided me felt too risky. I wasn't the most independent of teenagers, and certainly not rebellious in the traditional sense. I didn't believe I was born to run... I was born to stay where I was.

The 6th form careers adviser despaired of me. He'd have happily helped me fill out my UCAS form, but all I wanted to do was carry on working in radio. (And tinker with the writing on the side.) Of course, there wasn't actually a job going at the station where I worked... but yes, they could probably find me some more voluntary work during the week, and if I was around and available, paid opportunities would surely follow suit...

So when I finished my 'A' Levels in the summer of 1990, I walked away from my uni-bound friends... and those who were already applying for "proper" jobs... and went off to pursue my "hobby" 24/7. Surely, something spectacular would come of that... I was, after all (as most teenagers believe) destined for greatness...

#23 Echo & The Bunnymen - What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?

I realise some of these radio songs are becoming less about radio and more about my life story, but in an infinite number of posts, I'm sure I'll still have time to get to all the great radio songs I haven't yet featured. And there really was no more apt track to post than this one today...

If I knew now what I knew then
I'd wonder how not wonder when
There's something going wrong again
With me and mine
It's only ever what it seems
Memories and might have beens
Heaven's scent: the smell of dreams
We'll never find
Tell me... tell me... tell me...