Black Hair & Blue Mondays

So, this morning I woke up with the song ‘Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart’ in my head, a cover by Marc Almond originally by Gene Pitney from 1968.
When Gene Pitney heard the cover, he got in touch with Marc Almond and suggested to record it as a duet.
And it went straight to number one in the UK charts.

As I listened to the song, I thought, for young people now, a collaboration like Marc Almond - who was known as half of the duo called ‘Soft Cell’ (their biggest hit being another cover called ‘Tainted Love’ by Gloria Jones) - with Gene Pitney probably sounds plain “retro”, but at the time, it was surreal, this elder pop crooner suddenly merging with this pale, theatrical, art-drenched New Wave figure from the underground, and weirdly, it worked!

Which reminds me of the time I saw Marc Almond at Pinkpop (‘89) and I never forgot how he giggled about playing in the sunlight for the very first time, them being used to velvet darkness, cigarettes, red curtains, midnight clubs, mascara under blue lights, little clubs.
This sudden exposure of doing this in broad daylight must’ve felt hilariously wrong and magical at the same time.

And it got me thinking about that unique time when punk morphed into all kinds of fresh creations.
For a lot of young people, punk( -rock) looked like mohawks, studded leather jackets, safety pins (even through cheeks), and sort of aggressive music.
To me, punk was way bigger than that; it was a giant shift, a cultural detonation of ‘everything goes.’

So, this morning, after listening to Marc Almond (I actually prefer him without Gene, sorry Gene) I started listening to the YouTube suggested songs, and next up was:
Adam & the Ant’s: ‘Kings of the Wild Frontier’ with the heavy-hitting Burundi drums, pirate glam, warrior prince styling, stripes on the face, impossible swagger… and somehow it all worked. (and let’s face it, we all had a crush on this outlaw, right?)
The fuck-it-vibe of punk meeting a defiant dancing dandy.
No label would greenlight that now because it made no logical sense.
Which is exactly why it exploded.

And while dancing around the living room to all this 80s yummy, trying not to spill my morning coffee, the next song was, ’Blue Monday’ by New Order…a song that still makes me jump-n-stomp onto the dancefloor, where my me and my (me and my me and my) wild-looking - new wavie - friends with black soapie hair straight up and messy, in grandpa’s jackets, bleached ‘n black jeans and big boots would let ourselves be elevated to this for-ever-king-of-the-dancefloor song.

And…it still works for me…
Punk opened the floodgates of creation then…and thinking about it today, it opened the door for me to start writing about it.
Hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I will.

I.A.m