The Soundtrack to My Life

[Trollheart]

I guess we all have our soundtracks, the music that was the backdrop to our growing up; the albums we bought, the singles we had or listened to, what was in the charts or on the radio, or that special discovery we made that changed our musical life and set us on a path to exploring a certain genre, or genres. In this thread my intention is to write about the music that influenced me when I was growing up, or just stuff I listened to or remember hearing. It may have been music I loved, or music I hated. It may have been something well known or an album track that never got released as a single, or it may be music I heard on the telly or in a movie, classical music even. Anything that reminds me of when I was young and had hair, and before the weight of the world crushed my youthful spirit.

But hold on a mo, I hear you say: isn't this the same as that other thread you made? What was it: Trollheart's Fifty Chart Hits or something? Trollheart's Chart Fifty, I'll thank you to remember. And no, it isn't. Well, yes it kind of is, with one major difference. Oh: they took that out. Well no then it's exactly the same. No it isn't, as it happens. The other thread relies on my favourite way of choosing things, random, and everything has to have been in the charts. These tracks are being picked specifically by me, not at random, not from any list, but from this big thing inside my skull. Yeah, I know: I really must get that looked at - it's getting to be a concern. But anyway, no, seriously, I'm choosing these from songs I either remember, hear again or read about, and at some point I may look over the charts for some inspiration, but I won't be using an RNG here.

Feel free to post your own memories, though I won't be just putting up videos; you know how it is by now. Might even be that some of the stuff I'll be talking about won't be on YouTube, but that sure won't stop me writing about it. As if anything could.

(Note: "Writer(s)" refers to both lyrics and music; I'm not bothering to differentiate between them, so if one person or one group of people wrote the music and another the lyrics, they'll all be lumped in together as "writers".)


From


Title: "Mirror Man"
Artist: The Human League
Year: 1982
Nationality: English
Genre: Synthpop
Format: Single
Source: The 1983 EP Fascination!
Chart position (if any): 2
Writer(s): Phil Oakey, Jo Callis, Ian Burden
Subject: Adam Ant, apparently

I'll be the first to admit I was no fan of the Human League. Coming, as they did, at more or less the start of my metal phase, as I was getting into Iron Maiden and Saxon and Motorhead, and still very into progressive rock, I found them pop pap. And some of their stuff was, in fairness; I'd still say that. But as with all things, age brings, if not wisdom, at least a sense of more perhaps realisation of how entrenched and rigid my musical taste was back then. If the band didn't play guitars I wasn't interested. I didn't rate synthesisers and I certainly had no time for new romantics, new wave or anything new, other than the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

But even I, as a dyed-in-the-wool, harcore non-fan of Human League (despite secretly loving "Open Your Heart" and thinking "The Lebanon", later, was decent) could not help loving this song. From the opening almost acapella "ooh-ooh-ooh-ohh"s, the punching in of the percussion, and the swarm of synths as the song takes off, it just grabs you and lifts you up. On the surface, a really cheerful, upbeat song with a very definite Motown feel about it. Until today I had no idea  what it was about, now I read it took Adam Ant as its subject, the idea of buying into your own publicity. Kind of don't really get it, but hey, it's a pop song so we don't look too deeply into the lyric do we?

Whether you understand it or not, it's a great, happy, breezy song that just makes you want to keep listening to it, and even though back then I would pout and growl that it was "not real music", the part of me that wasn't a rock snob was dancing inside, and it remains, for me, one of their best songs, at least, of the few I've heard. Here he comes!