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XIII

My Top Ten songs compilation that grew to 13.

After receiving several of my CD compilations, a fraternity brother, Brad Caldart, suggested creating one with my top ten songs. I took his challenge to heart and began compiling lists of possible entries.  That was well over a year ago.  I’ve promised several times to quit producing CD collections, only to do so again and again.

So, I beg forgetfulness and share my latest anthology.  To no surprise, it’s more than ten songs.  The profundity of the occasion demanded no less than XIII.  And like the Super Bowl, I chose Roman numerals to convey their renown.  I searched for songs that say something, and to no surprise, many have appeared on previous compilations.  There are several new ones.  As is my custom, what the songs mean to me, and why they matter, is explained below.  They carry one common theme – nostalgia.

I. Big River (1995) – This song first came to my attention in October 2021. On an early Saturday morning, I prepared to watch the Tottenham soccer match played at Newcastle.  The home team celebrated their new Saudi owners by playing over the stadium loudspeakers Jimmy Nail’s wistful remembrance about growing up in Newcastle.  It’s focused on the collapse of the Newcastle shipbuilding industry on the River Tyne where his father worked.  The Neptune shipyard was the last to go, Jimmy heard on the radio, and then they played the latest No. 1.

It took several listenings, before I heard the line, “that was when coal was king,” the name of my newspaper column since 2007.  Sting grew up nearby and expressed similar sentiments in his 2013 album, The Last Ship, which spawned a 2014 musical of the same name with Sting in the starring role.  Through blind luck, we caught his performance in L.A., a month before Covid shut down the nation.

 

II. Tambourine Man (1965) – I listened to this song continuously during college. Why – the poetic lyrics, the storytelling parable, and conclusive end, “let me forget about today until tomorrow.”  This song appeared on my first cassette compilation, The Best of December 6, 1978.

 

III. Superman’s Ghost (1987) – Growing up, I was a huge fan of Superman, the comic books, the TV show, and all things to do with superpowers. After school, found me planted at home or with a friend in front of a TV watching Adventures of.  Though George Reeves’ death by suicide came in 1959, my innocent ears didn’t hear about it until several years later – in the school yard when this silly joke was offered, “Do you know why George Reeves shot himself? – He thought he was Superman.”  Don McLean captures more than just his death in his poignant song.

 

IV. Questions (1976) – I was so enraptured by Mannfred Mann and Chris Slade’s lyrics that my sister, Danica inscribed them for me in calligraphy on old-fashioned parchment paper. I’ve kept it in my Webster’s Third International Dictionary under the letter Q.  Another song from the collection of Dec. 6, 1978.

 

V. The Last Campaign Trilogy (1974) – Several years back, upon asking Siri to play John Stewart songs, this tune from his live double-album Phoenix Concerts came on. From its opening lyrics (“It was more than Indiana, more than South Dakota, more than California, More than Oregon”), I immediately understood the reference to Bobby Kennedy’ ill-fated run for president.  Stewart traveled with the campaign playing songs before Kennedy took the stage.

A political junkie in the 9th grade, I followed each primary and was fascinated by the three-way races in both parties: D’s – McCarthy, Humphrey, Kennedy; R’s – Rockefeller, Reagan, Nixon.  Stewart’s allegorical song is about much more.  Our family was in Vienna that fateful morning, where the newspapers’ front pages showed a Hispanic waiter by his side, offering comfort to the fallen senator.  In the hotel lobby, an old Austrian woman, her greying hair wrapped in a black scarf, hissed, “Johnson, Johnson!”

 

VI. A Winter’s Tale (1982) – This song was written for David Essex and spent ten weeks on the British charts peaking at No. 2. I discovered it on the Moody Blues’ 2003 album,   Tim Rice, famous for Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita wrote the lyrics.  Great lyricists invest heartfelt meaning into a mere 156 words.

 

VII. I Was Only Joking (1978) – Rod Stewart released this song as a double-A single. Its flip side, Hot Legs was played heavily the U.S.  I spent most of the first six months of 1978 traveling in Europe, where this introspective side was regularly played.  I fell in love with his autobiographical lyrics and confessional delivery.

 

VIII. ‘39 (1975) – Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen’s mammoth hit from A Night at the Opera, is a song that might just as well been included here. Brian May, the group’s lead guitarist, wrote ‘39. The song is about space travel and the dilation of time in Einstein’s theory of relativity.  A century has passed when the explorers return, but they are but a year older.  Their contemporaries are dead, and the space travelers encounter only their aging grandchildren. May achieved his doctorate in Astrophysics in 2007.

 

IX. The Way Life’s Meant To Be (1981) – Another time travel song, where ELO’s Jeff Lynne discovers a disappointing future world, filled with ivory towers and plastic flowers. It’s not the utopia he imagined, symbolized by a wish to be back in 1981.  I had never heard this song until 35 years after its release, when Spencer used it as the fadeaway in a short film project at Chapman University.

 

X. Going All the Way – A Song in 6 Movements (2016) – This song appeared on Meat Loaf’s final album, Braver Than We Are. While Meat Loaf was the front-man, all his best songs were by Jim Steinman, who also wrote and produced No. 1 songs for Bonny Tyler – Total Eclipse of the Sun; Air Supply – Making Love Out of Nothing at All; Boyzone – No Matter What; and Barry Manilow- Read ‘Em and Weep.  Steinman joined Andrew Lloyd Webber and wrote the lyrics for their 1996 musical, Whistle Down the Wind.  Meat Loaf and Steinman died within months of each other during Covid.

 

XI. God Only Knows (1966) – Opens side 2 of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album.  Paul McCartney summed it up best, when he described it as, “The greatest song ever written.”

 

XII. See Me Through (Part II) Just a Closer Walk (1991) – Van Morrison takes this 1941 gospel-jazz standard way back to Hyndford Street, where he grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland.   Morrison reflects back on his childhood memories about 80 seconds in with a spoken-word poem that describes a Sunday afternoon in winter  . . .

And the tuning in of stations in Europe on the wireless,
Before, yes before this was the way it was,
More silence, more breathing together,
Not rushing, being,
Before rock `n’ roll, before television,
Previous, previous, previous.

 

XIII. All the Love I Have (2000) – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, The Beautiful Game (soccer) is centered on a Belfast Catholic team during the Troubles of 1969, the deadly conflict between Protestants and Catholics (watch the 2021 film “Belfast”). Ben Elton wrote the lyrics.

The star soccer player, John Kelly has joined the IRA, as his wife, Mary, pleads for him to reconsider leaving their marriage and abandoning his young son.  It’s a stirring finale to this fine musical.

Note: The finale is actually two songs, All the Love I Have and Beautiful Game Finale, thus two video are shared below.

The Beautiful Game Finale:

 

XIII – December 2025 is also available on WJMK90 Spotify or as an Apple Playlist.  Message Bill Kombol for a mailed CD version or a text of the Spotify or Apple playlists.

XIII CD songs and length.

 

Categories
Musings

Living London’s Life – 1978

The brass rubbing from an Oxford cathedral and a photo of me by Anne Biege.

While traveling through Europe that year I’d set a tight budget: $10 per day, excluding travel.  In London, this tiny allowance would be tested.  The first night I tramped about Kings Cross station looking for economical accommodations.  Most were at prices that fully consumed my budget goal.  I chose the cheapest of the lot and the next day scoured classifieds looking for something under $5 per day.  I avoided hostels,  to be free of Americans with Eurorail passes moving about in herds.  There were a hundred too many young Yanks, each backpacking through Europe with indeterminate plans to some day attend grad school when back home.  They simply didn’t interest me.  I wanted to live among locals.

A boarding house in northeast London at  Highbury & Islington at £2.50 a night caught my eye.  The exchange rate of $1.85 per pound was favorable, so the room came to a frugal $4.65 per night.  It also included a full English breakfast, so that would cut down on food costs.  I had a private room with a free-standing tub, sink, high ceilings, and water chamber down the hall.

I kept the 1978 map of the London Underground.

The building was a sprawling Victorian affair, a bit shabby and nearly a mile from the tube stop, which meant there were no tourists in sight.  In fact, the boarding house only accepted men, mostly tradesmen and laborers. Breakfast was served from 5:30 to 7:30 am in a drab, low-ceiling basement. We sat on benches at heavy wooden tables hunched over our hot breakfasts.  It was the same every day: runny baked beans, greasy bacon, stewed tomatoes, bread toasted on one side, butter, marmalade, cornflakes, tea, juice, and coffee, all served cafeteria style.  There was little conversation.  Men of all ages sat sullenly contemplating another day’s labor.  It was fine by me.  I rose early, ate the hearty fare, and was out the door for my day’s adventure.

Soon after arriving, I read about a free concert at Victoria Park in east London.  There were expected to be 80,000 fans to march from Trafalgar Square to Rock Against Racism, as the event was known.  After observing the masses at Trafalgar I’d hopped the tube to the park.  In early 1978, punk music was pretty new.  I considered England’s biggest act, the Sex Pistols to be dreadful.  But, the Clash were different – talented musicians with inventive lyrics, good melodies, and two front-men, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones who rocked with the best of them.

The Clash performing in Victoria Park before 80,000 on April 30, 1978.

I sidled my way up front near the stage.  When the Clash performed mobs of young men jumped up and down some with violent intent.  From its resemblance to a pogo stick, Pogo-ing soon became a verb.  I joined along, but the most rambunctious of the pack swung heads and fists so violently that I beat a quick retreat to safer spaces along the edge.   Also on the Rock Against Racism program that day were: the Tom Robinson Band (political rock); Steel Pulse (reggae) and X-ray Spex (punk), with only TRB being any good.

During most days, I’d visit museums, galleries, historical monuments, fashionable squares, parks, and vibrant districts.  Hyde Park, Speaker’s Corner was always a hoot, like the half-bearded wit who entertained the crowd for an hour.  Towards early evening I’d gravitate to areas with cheap restaurants to peruse menus, looking for the best prix fixe value for a multi-course meal.  Those deals were usually found in immigrant districts so I often dined in Indian, Pakistani, or Middle Eastern joints.

This witty, half-bearded guy entertained the crowd at Speaker’s Corner for nearly an hour.

I typically planned an evening’s entertainment and often joined the London Walks around famous neighborhoods.  These walks had names like Sherlock Holmes’s Baker Street or the Secret World of Jack the Ripper.  You’d meet the guide at a pub.  Then a dozen or so tourists followed a well-spoken Brit who guided us through the streets of London relating topical stories with anecdotal stops at key points.

At the end of the typical 90-minute tour, most of the crowd topped off their evening with a pint or two in the pub where we’d first met.  Some nights I’d catch a music performance, some freely presented in a club or church.  I saw a bit of theater, the one to remember being Agatha Christies’ “Mousetrap,” the world’s longest-running play  having been continuously performed since 1952.  I’d hope to have seen more theater, like my literary hero, Somerset Maugham did when he was a youth 80 years earlier, but ticket prices were far higher than those days when Maugham paid pennies for a show.

Afterward, I’d catch the tube back to Islington & Highbury station for the long walk home under lamp lights to my boarding house. Sometimes the station was filled with festive, red-garbed Arsenal soccer fans, as the football stadium was a 15-minute walk.  Sometimes one’s thoughts conjured dire images of walking home alone at night in a foreign city.  But fortunately, this area hadn’t much cause for concern as few people were out late, and the ones that were had work in the morning.  Still, I stayed alert as getting jumped was never far from my mind.

One night whilst on a London Walk, I met a young Brit about my age who told me Queen was playing at Empire Pool (now Wembley Arena).  The thought of spending a night at the opera with Freddy Mercury and Brian May was enticing so plans were made to meet at a certain time and place outside the arena.  The bloke never showed so I bought a ticket (£2.50) and found myself witnessing one of the greatest performing bands of all time.  Queen rocked most all their hits, including eight songs from “Night at the Opera” and some lesser-known personal favorites like “39” and “Love of My Life.”

I kept my Queen ticket stub. At then exchange rates, £2.50 came to about $4.65.

My favorite hobby was reading London newspapers. Newsstands were everywhere, and it was easy to find discarded copies at any rail or subway station.  I read them all: Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Evening Standard, Daily Mail, London Times (a tad too dry), and page 3 of the Sun (aficionados will understand).  There were also the weekly music rags like Melody Maker and New Music Express filled with stories about rock and pop groups of the day with a listing of nightly happenings at hundreds of music venues scattered through town.   Rare but welcome was the International Herald-Tribune, a joint-venture daily by the New York Times and Washington Post, bringing news of home, especially U.S. sports which weren’t often covered abroad.

Anne Biege in her Oxford dorm room, May 1978.

I made one brief sojourn from London to Oxford to see a hometown friend, Anne Biege who was studying there.  She showed me about the storied campus and we had a pint at the Eagle and Child, the pub made famous by C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and fellow inklings.  Anne found me a bed in her friend Tim Gallagher’s room.  He was an English major with a fascination for Edmund Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene.”  In an ancient cathedral, I made a brass rubbing from an armored knight.  I still have it.

My rubbing of a knight in Oxford’s cathedral.

My two-month visa to the United Kingdom was set to expire in a few days.  I’d spent a month in Wales (including one week traveling with a rugby team up the Irish coast) and nearly a month in London.  Soon it was time to head back to Paris and join my sister, Danica for her birthday, then head for Spain.

Here’s the postcard I wrote home to the folks towards the end of my stay in London.

May 8, 1978

Dear Mom & Dad,

Well, I’m here in London and have been about a week and a half now.  It’s a great city though I now have a much different perspective of it than I had 10 years ago.  I’ve been trying to go out every night and have so far seen three plays, four movies, five rock groups (all in one day at a free open-air, Anti-Nazi concert in Victoria Park), one classical concert, and innumerable pubs.  I’m living in a nice ‘dump’ in the suburb of Highbury, northwest of the city.  It’s kind of a working-class boarding house for those single people on the lower end of the economic ladder.  Quite comfortable, yet unremarkable, though its cheapness compensates adequately.

I’ve been really active touring and such, having taken in many of the main and not-so-main sights of London.  Among the more notable with short descriptions:

  • House of Commons – where I heard the Rhodesia problem debated.
  • Old Bailey – where I saw a real live murder trial.
  • Hyde Park – where the better part of yesterday’s sunny Sunday was spent listening to all sorts of weirdos at Speaker’s Corner.
  • Tower Hill, a Chelsea pub walk, a Dickens’ Oliver Twist walk, most of the major art museums, the London Stock Exchange, and several assorted churches.

I wrote to Anne Biege and will call her Wednesday in hopes of going to see her in Oxford.  Tonight I plan to go to the Marquee Club for a rock concert in the same club the Rolling Stones frequently played in the early Sixties.

Oh, by the way, this postcard represents my favorite picture from today’s visit to the gallery listed below (Edouard Manet, The Bar at the Folies-Bergere, 1881 – Courtauld Institute Galleries, University of London). I’ve been doing that with each visit to a gallery lately.  I still haven’t written to Barry.  Ahhh . . . tell him I lost his address. I’ve written Jean a couple of times though I just got a letter from Dana the other day.  Also, got Scott Hamilton and his English sheepdog, Gretchen off at Heathrow Airport okay.

As they say here, “All the best.”  – Bill

My post card to Mom & Dad – I’m still amazed at my tiny cursive script, even more that it was kept legible.  Above portrait by Edouard Manet – The Bar at the Folies-Bergere, 1881 – Courtauld Institute Galleries, University of London.
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