Two weeks since I last posted anything here, disgraceful… but time and tide wait for no man, and time has just vanished quickly in the last couple of weeks for me. But at this time of year I’m usually out riding the bike in my spare time, and when I’m not riding my bike I’m glued to the TV watching the sat coverage of the Tour de France. So time has flown, but I feel the need to post a bit more music on here so I’ll try this weekend.
Okay, enough of my dull routine and back to the songs for the desert island collection. This next song is a strange one, I don’t think it was ever a hit.. I may be wrong but I don’t think so. And from what I can gather from the internet it’s rare now, I know it took me ages to get hold of it.. don’t ask where from because I have no idea where I eventually found it. But find it I did and I’m pleased about that.
Lindisfarne were never my cup of tea really, not that I didn’t like them, I did, but I never had any of their songs when they were out and in the charts. Fog On The Tyne.. Lady Elenore… Run For Home.. these songs were all hits for them in the ’70’s… I do like Lady Elenore and have it now. But the song I’m posting.. Juke Box Gypsy.. is by far the best song I heard them play. Very catchy. I’ve never heard it on the radio, in fact I’ve never heard it played anywhere apart from where I first came across it.
There’s a bar not far from where I live, it’s called The Junction.. and I used to frequent the place quite a bit back in the late ’70’s. It’s all changed now so I don’t bother, can’t remember the last time I was in there… anyway, it had two small rooms, one a lounge type thing and the other a pool room. In the pool room was a very good old jukebox, a Wurlitzer, and it had the most wonderful selection of songs on it.. and you got quite a few selections for your money, reasonable, so it was always playing. So I’m in there one Friday evening with a group of friends, the bar was a little rough around the edges so it was always a bit “lively”.. if you know what I mean, and therefore I liked it. So I’m in there chatting away and having a few beers when this song comes on the jukebox, I started half listening to it while trying to hold a conversation but noticed that there were people singing along to it, really enjoying themselves. By the time I started paying enough attention the song was finished, it’s only a short song, so I went over to the jukebox and started looking through the songs to see if I could find it, I couldn’t. Anyway, as I’m stood there a guy comes up and puts a coin in and makes a few selections, straight away the song starts playing again.. “who’s this?.. I ask him…”Lindisfarne” he says.. “What?… this?… this is Lindisfarne?”… “yeah, it’s them, good isn’t it?”.. and so the conversation went on. I must say I was surprised because it wasn’t the sort of song I expected to hear them play. But by now everyone’s dancing and carrying on in this pool room… to Lindisfarne? but on listening to it I understood why. The song is a very happy one, good times.. happy days, and it rocks along nicely for almost three minutes. When it stopped it wasn’t long before it was back on again and everyone’s singing away. And so it went that everytime I went in there I’d shove a coin in the jukebox and have it playing in no time. I love it.
After I stopped going in there I forgot about it, totally, until someone mentioned it to me a few years back. I set out to find it, couldn’t.. kept trying and eventually downloaded it from some site or other, as I say, it’s rare. I have honestly never heard it anywhere else, not on any other jukebox, anywhere, never. But I’ll tell you what, it’s in the desert island collection like a shot… it has to be.. I still dance around to it for goodness sake. It goes with me everywhere on my mp3, it cheers me up. So as it’s been a bit quiet up there on my beach for the last week or so we’ll liven it up again, and it’s Saturday night. Vodka time, I think… several tonight, for no other reason than that I feel like it. It would be great to have that old Jukebox in my shack, but we’ll pretend.. I’ll slip a little flat pebble (instead of a coin) under the laptop and select Juke Box Gypsy.. can’t remember the number, we’ll say F 7.. and then on it comes. Anyone care for a dance?
