It's a cruel, cruel summer, but at least I've got ELO

Sunday Tribune 5 July


I HAVE good news. I won't be giving out about anything this week. I decided this on Wednesday while listening to RTÉ's Drivetime. Along with the relentless misery there was a piece marking the 30th birthday of the Sony Walkman. It raised the clouds for a few minutes.
So the following is a sort of Happy Birthday to the Walkperson. It's for people from a certain age group. So kids, bugger off to your room now.
I remember the first time I saw a Walkman was behind my school's handball alleys. Ten Major in hand, I turned the corner to see Andrew Flood surrounded by a crowd of excited, spotty adolescents. He was shouting. "BRILLIANT!!!! JUZCANGEDENNUF, AH JUZCANGEDENNUF!!!!" What a mentaller, I thought.
"What's up?" I asked Charlie Costello, trendsetter of fifth year.
"He's listening to my Walkman," he explained.
"Oh." I nodded knowingly, not having a clue what a Walkman was.
"Here," he lifted the headphones off Floodie's mullet, "have a listen."
I suppose you could call it an epiphany. There's no other way to describe being assumed into stereo heaven for the first time. The quality was staggering. Depeche Mode's 'Just Can't Get Enough' was playing. Electronic notes pinged, buzzed and ricocheted around my head. "AH JUZCANGEDENNUF!!!!" I sang and silent faces laughed back at me.
Prior to the Walkman, the most portable musical player was a tape recorder. I bought my first one with my Confirmation money – £11. It was a rectangular, mono Lloytron with a built-in condenser mic. I used to put it under the telly for Top of the Pops and pressed record when the The Jam or Blondie came on, noisily banging it off when Abba or The Nolans appeared, which really annoyed my sisters.
It was portable, but you couldn't walk down the street listening to a Lloytron. Someone would, justifiably, beat you up for being a twat. Then the Walkman arrived and music could be pogoed to on a friend's hi fi and played on the way home too. It had left the living room.
The Walkman, if you could afford one, made the streets of early '80s Ireland seem less grim. It helped block out the uncertainties of being a teenager and cast us as the stars of our own imaginary music videos.
It also eventually led to the solipsistic world of today where Mp3 players are used to shut out the sound of humanity's cogs turning: coughing on the bus, a baby crying, someone looking like they want to chat.
The Walkman brought opportunities for adolescent intimacy. Sharing a headphone, cheek to cheek, could lead to brittle teen romances. The mix tape was conceived: a cassette filled with favourite tracks and given to the object of your lust.
It contained songs like Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Two Tribes', with its controversial video depicting Ronald
Reagan wrestling the Russian premier. Maybe we should get Brian and Enda to do that. Could solve a lot of problems. My money's on Biffo, though. He looks like he bites. But I'm digressing.

Madonna's 'Papa Don't Preach' was another favourite. Someone should sing that to Bishop of Galway, Martin Drennan, who is stopping mourners leaving loved- ones in church overnight. Apparently it's 'inappropriate'. Yet another example of compassionate Irish Catholicism. Actually, I'd better be careful what I say: don't want to blaspheme. I might get fined €25,000 under Dermot Ahern's new blasphemy law. Last week, he back­pedalled slightly by reducing it from €100,000 but is still sticking with his crackpot's charter.
We'll add one in honour of his new anti-gang law. The Clash's 'I Fought The Law And The Law Won'.
How about 'Caravan of Love' by the Housemartins for John Gormley? He's backtracked on placing a property tax on mobile homes after an outcry on Liveline. He still won't listen to the outcry over Tara though. What a hypocrite.
Sorry, I promised not to give out. Here's one for Bill Cullen who accuses Gormley of wrecking the car industry: Alexei Sayle's 'Hello John, Got a New Motor?'.
How about some ska? Madness to go with our ministers' decision to take 10 internal flights this year at a cost of over €20,000. Bad Manners to go with the second suspension in a week of the Dáil due to heckling. The Specials' 'Ghost Town', which is what the Dáil will be when these timewasters go on their 11-week holidays.
Our penultimate track is the Boomtown Rats' 'Banana Republic'. Blasphemy laws, Tara and Nama becoming the biggest owner of bad debts on the planet? BananaNama. Wasn't that a girl band who sang 'Cruel Summer'?
It's cruel all right, given that unemployment reached 11.9% last Wednesday. This was the news which prompted me to stop listening to Drivetime and promise (unsuccessfully) not to give out. When Leo Varadkar said "this is the darkest day in the worst ever recession" Julian Cope's 'World Shut Your Mouth' began playing in my head. I reached for my iPod, stuck in my headphones and listened to one of my favourite bands, Electric Light Orchestra. The song I played is 30 years old this month, like the Walkman. 'Don't Bring Me Down' never fails to cheer me up.

July 5, 2009