Back in the early 60s, a young man named Ronald Wycherley changed his name to Billy Fury and began to make waves in the UK charts. When he needed a new backing band, one of the groups that auditioned were called The Silver Beetles. They were offered the job minus their bassist, Stuart Sutcliffe, but they refused to make that sacrifice. Guitarist John Lennon did ask for Fury's autograph though, before the Silver Beetles left the audition.
A year later, Fury had his biggest hit with a cover of the Goffin/King song Halfway To Paradise. Or that's how history remembers it. In truth, Halfway To Paradise only reached #3 in the charts, one of three Fury singles to achieve that position. He did better with his follow-up release, Jealousy (a version of the Danish song, Jalousie, written in 1925) which got to #2.
Twenty-some years later, NME writer Cath Carroll formed the band Miaow in Manchester and began to make minor ripples in the UK indie charts. Miaow released a bunch of singles but split up before they finished their debut album (Carroll went on to join The Hit Parade and pursue a solo career in the 90s). One of the tracks that might have made the cut for that unreleased album is this radio session which takes a few more steps towards completing Billy Fury's journey...
I've been re-reading The Shining by Stephen King recently. Two reasons for this. One, the last couple of modern novels I've read have left me underwhelmed and frustrated. Two, Louise keeps saying, "you have all these old books on the shelves that you never read," and I needed a little more evidence to back up my claims that, "I'll read them again someday". Otherwise: charity shop.
Anyway, I like reading books set in the world of my childhood. A pre-internet, pre-covid, pre-modern day bullshit world... simpler times. The Shining was first published in 1977, when I was 5, a world where a telephone in your home was apparently something of a luxury...
Wendy had insisted on a phone in spite of their unraveling finances. She had argued that with a small child - especially a boy like Danny, who sometimes suffered from fainting spells - they couldn't afford not to have one. So Jack had forked over the thirty-dollar installation fee, bad enough, and a ninety-dollar security deposit, which really hurt. And so far the phone had been mute, except for two wrong numbers.
I'm not sure when my parents got their first telephone installed, but it was there on the wall between the kitchen and the living room throughout my childhood. I remember standing there, when I could reach it, and rotary dialling the numbers... then waiting for a friend's mum to answer. "Hi Mrs. Brook. Is Liam in? Can he come to the phone?"
Of course, the alternative was the good old-fashioned phone box, recently celebrated in John's August Photo Challenge.
Now he dialed the operator and she told him that for a dollar eighty-five he could be put in touch with Al two thousand miles away for three minutes. Time is relative, baby, he thought, and stuck in eight quarters. Faintly he could hear the electronic boops and beeps of his connection sniffling its way eastward.
We take so much for granted these days. A lot of people don't even bother with a home phone anymore, and to be honest, the only time I take a call on ours is when Louise has taken Sam out and she's calling to tell me to put the tea on.
I remember explaining to a bunch of phone-addicted students a few years back that we never even had mobiles when I was a kid. A look of genuine panic crept over their faces.
"But what if you were at school and your mum needed to speak to you urgently?"
"Well, I guess she'd call the school office and someone would come down to pass a message on," I replied... but I couldn't think of any occasion when such a thing had been necessary. Nothing was so urgent that it couldn't wait a few hours back then.
"Or what about if you were meeting up with some mates in town?"
"Well, you'd arrange a time and a place and..."
"But what if they were late?"
"Then you'd wait. And if they still didn't show up, I guess you'd go home and call them later."
Here are some more songs about the telephones of our youth...
Fair play to 'em. I did my best to keep this song out of this Top Ten, if only because of its sheer ubiquity. That said, I can't deny it's one of the best tunes Coldplay have written in years, and a genuine earworm. I listened to a lot more paradise songs than just the ten listed here, but the only ones that were honestly better than this (in the humble opinion of my ears) are the ones listed below.
A record so monumentally awesome, it's hard to believe it only makes #3. Hell, the video's even got DLR poncing about on vertiginous cliffs, surfing a flying canoe and accompanied by a three-necked, heart-shaped guitar.
Gains extra marks for mentioning Captain America in the lyrics... but still doesn't score high enough to beat this: 1. Meat Loaf - Paradise By The Dashboard Light
Because nothing succeeds like excess.
Jim Steinman's epic tale of teenage fumblings by the light of a dashboard in which Meat and Ellen Foley play the roles of young lovers who might... or might not... go all the way. Depends how well he sweet-talks her... promises her the earth... or flat-out begs. All that and the terrible consequences of promising to love someone forever...
I reckon this'll be one of my more debatable Top Tens - there were loads of great songs left out. Which one takes you to paradise?
