I said in the How You Doing blog that I was a long time lurker and don’t post much, so I thought I would rectify the situation and give it a go. This might be a bit of a ramble, so please bear with me.
With it being Christmas, I thought a post about 1979, and especially Christmas 1979, would be a good place to start. A lot happened that year that would change the course of my life.
In March I turned 18, but was in a bit of rut jobwise since leaving school two years previously. But by May through a bit of luck and perseverance, I managed to get an apprenticeship with a small engineering firm. Things were looking good, I had a great group of friends, we were out drinking every night, going to loads of gigs, and playing football every Sunday morning. What a year for music as well, with Blondie and the Police hitting the big time, and new acts like the Specials and Madness making their mark on the charts. There was plenty of rock going on as well.
I went abroad for the first time with two friends (my mother was worried sick), and if I ever hear My Sharona or Are Friends Electric, it always take me back to that week in Majorca.
As Christmas approached, I was looking forward to it, but it didn’t have the exciting build up it did when I was younger. There were seven of us at home, mum, dad, four boys, and also my nan had moved in with us a few years earlier. My nan was 64 at the time, but looking at photos now she looked about 80. She had just been diagnosed with breast cancer, but was positive about it and didn’t let it get her down ( She died in 1983 aged 68). Mum had also been diagnosed with it as well. ( She died in 1987 aged 51).
Christmas was the only time when we bought the tv guides. Radio Times for BBC, TV Times for ITV. There were only three channels at the time remember. It was a time of looking through them looking for films which were being shown for the first time. If you didn’t catch them, you may not see them for another year as video recorders were in their infancy, and few people had them. We didn’t have one for another three years.
I’ll never forget the excitement I felt when I saw that the BBC were showing all the Beatles films, including Live at Shea Stadium which had never been shown. I’d seen Help and A Hard Days Night in the early 70s when they were shown on Boxing day morning, and again in 1976 when they were shown in the summer. In fact I missed the end of AHDN that summer as I was watching it at my friend’s house and the electric ran out about half way through it. Nobody could find a 50p or whatever it was, to go in the meter.
But this was different now, I was 18, a massive Beatles fan, and I was going to see all their films over Christmas. I actually was shaking with excitement. The only problem was, we only had one telly, so I had to use all my powers of persuasion to get my way. Luckily for me, my parents knew about my Beatles obsession, and were happy for me to watch them. It turned into the best Christmas I’d ever had up to that point.
Little did I know that there was another surprise in store for me. On New Years Eve, a gang of us from football went into town. We ended up in the Top Rank club. I honestly can’t remember if it was before midnight ( the last day of the 70s), or after midnight (the first day of the 80s), when I met the girl who would become my wife. She can’t remember either.
But here we are nearly 45 years since those Beatles films, and that chance encounter. We’ve been married 42 years, have two wonderful daughters, and three grandchildren under eight. It hasn’t all been plain sailing, and we’ve had plenty of good and bad times. I’ve had some wonderful Christmases over the years, and hopefully this year will be no exception. But that wonderful year of 1979, and especially that Christmas and New Year, will always hold just a little special place in my heart.
A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone on this blog.
Nadolig Llawen
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That was a nice read, Alan. I remember those times very well although I am a bit younger than you, I think. Are “Friends” Electric? was an absolute game-changer. I think I heard it for the very first time when it was performed on TOTP.
It certainly was a game changer, and definitely the sound of that summer for me. The follow up Cars is also a fantastic song.
I enjoyed that. I was probably a little too young (12) to remember Christmas 1979, but there was this on the BBC the other day…..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000cr9j/what-we-were-watching-christmas-1979
Thanks for the link. I will watch that this evening.
Thanks for entertaining us with your memories of a time when it really mattered what was on telly at Xmas and the whole family had to share one television.
Something that the youth of 2024 would struggle to understand.
Exactly. You had one chance to see a programme, or you might never see it again. It might sound a bit like Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen, but although times were tougher, the family gatherings around the telly, especially at Christmas are something I’ll always treasure. Watching Morecambe and Wise, or The Mike Yarwood Show with my mum and nan drinking their Snowballs, and dad getting slowly drunk are great memories.
Snowballs! What a wonderful memory @Alan33.
Talk about Proustian! Your mention of snowballs makes me think of Advocaat, a creamy Dutch liquor which was very popular and often cropped up at the delightfully boozy weddings and other celebrations with my father’s relatives in East Ham and Catford.
My first taste of alcohol. When no one was looking I would help myself to a slurp from the drinks table.
I grew up in genteel Pinner where boozy knees-ups were conspicuous by their absence.
One very big part of Xmas is nostalgia and remembering Xmasses Past. So your thread has really the nail on the head.
Where did I spent Xmas 1979? Working as a tour guide in Jerusalem of all places.
If I remember correctly, we did a tour to Bethlehem on Xmas Day, The atmosphere was very restrained.
When as I student I worked behind the bar at Batley Variety Club, snowballs were so popular we used to make up trays with glasses of Advocaat so that we were ready for the demand for snowballs as the night wore on.
I seem to recall it was Billy Connolly who called Advocaat alcoholic snot.
So you worked for Bernard Manning? Was he as nice as he seemed?
Manning’s place was Manchester way so I’ve no idea.
Sorry about that – I had in my head that his club went by that name. I now know that it was the Embassy.
Thanks for your kind words. Yes, I used to be given a sneaky glass of it as well. The thing I remember most is that although they drank snowballs for a couple of days over Christmas, that would be it for another year. And nobody used to drink in the house in those days apart from Christmas and New Year. My dad liked a pint, and was out about three or four times a week. He’d only have about four pints and that would be it. I never ever saw him drunk, except when he got a bit merry at New year. At Christmas he would get a few flagons of pale ale from the local off licence, and maybe a bottle of sherry for mum. It didn’t do him any harm though, as he died two years ago aged 96, and was in good health all his life.
He’d have lived to 120, had he not partaken, y’know. Perhaps.
..or died of boredom at 70. Possible.
1979 seems like a lifetime away but it’s a year that sticks in my memory too. For me it was the very last year of a safe and happy childhood. The big event of leaving school the following year and embracing a future of unknowns in a new decade was hugely daunting. I remember 1979 as a particularly happy time.
Nice piece of writing @Alan33. Are Friends Electric was a great song and very evocative of those days.
Thanks for your kind words. It’s a lifetime away, but also like yesterday in some ways. It was a great year for music, but Are Friends Electric is certainly a contender for best single.
Diolch Alan, I enjoyed that. It is such a long time ago now. 1979 was the year I saw Led Zep at Knebworth and the year I returned to art school. Little did I suspect that twelve months later I would meet the girl who was to become my everything.
Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it, although I’m a bit jealous that you saw the mighty Led Zep at Knebworth. I would have loved to be there, but couldn’t make it. So glad you met the girl of your dreams the following year. We never know what’s around the corner, do we?
No we never do.
Nadolig hapus Alan and welcome aboard.
1979 saw my first proper Christmas with a decent home of my own in Bristol, sharing a large bohemian flat with a new pal who knew a whole lot of splendid Brizzle folk that would become my circle of close friends over the following 12 months. Central amongst them was the woman with whom I am still happily married today. So a significant year for me too! Merry Christmas @Alan33, and thanks for the reminders.
Merry Christmas to you as well. That sounds like a great time you had. We used to go to Bristol a lot in those days. Although I’m still in Cardiff, I haven’t been for years.
I think ‘Are Friends Electric?’ was the first single I bought – evocative and a classic, certainly.
A great first single. It came from nowhere, and everyone I knew thought it was amazing.
.6Music have just played The Greedies “Merry Jingle Christmas” or whatever it’s called. Anyway I liked it and it was from 1979.
Just watched the video. Great stuff!
Thanks Alan for sharing your story, it brings back memories of me being 17 in 1979. Trying desperately to look 18 and get served in pubs, being mad about music and going to loads of gigs . I agree too it was great period of top music.
It certainly was an amazing time. Looking through the songs from that year, there was so much variety, and plenty that would now be called classics.
I was 9 in 1979 and had just discovered this thing called music. Had my first tape recorder for my birthday in July and was busily recording stuff off the radio.
I cite Dave Edmunds performing Girls Talk on Top of The Pops as “the moment” and a friends copy of Look-In featuring Blondie and The Boomtown Rats.
You will appreciate this, Rigid – I taped TOTP with a cassette player, with finger hovering over the pause button in a vain attempt to block out the DJ’s voice.
One song I really liked from those times and played back dozens of times was SLF’s Nobody’s Hero. As a result I can’t hear it now it without also hearing David “Kid!” Jensen’s voice at either end.
DJ voices – many many recordings from Radio 1 had Tony Blackburn, Simon Bates, Noel Edmonds or Richard Skinner tacked onto the end where I didn’t hit pause quick enough.
Richard Skinner was particularly annoying announcing the record, letting the intro play, and then saying something else.
When I presented hospital radio shows, you noted the length of intros so you could name the requester(s) and say a few words within that time. Stopping at the right tine just as the vocals came in was very satisfying.
Before any purists get irked, it was normally Harry Secombe or Englebert or some old tosh like that.
We now use a system called Myriad on our local radio station and the intro counts down to the vocal start, which is great, but on adoption someone had to work through every track in the library and actually edit the meta data. They also had to mark whether it faded out or ended.
I was a bit older, 15. Peak music time for me.
Check this out..,
A-Z of singles from 1979
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1979_singles
In the B section alone, Born to be Alive and Bomber
Edith. Not sure which, erm, territory and no mention of the Greedies…but crikey what a list
And in the O section: Oliver’s Army, Overkill, One Step Beyond, Oops Upside Your Head and … One Day At A Time
(1979 was quite a diverse year chartwise)
I was trying to get to that point Rigid. Diverse and all the more fantastic for it
I’d forgot about Born to be Alive. That’s all we ever heard on our holiday in Majorca. It was played from morning to night. I don’t think the dj had any other records.
It’s a banger!
Me too Freddy and just discovering loud guitar music, which was my choice until about 1986 when my taste, such as it is, broadened, courtesy of my then girlfriend. Records were mainly bought from the Sunday market at Wembley Stadium with the proceeds of a Saturday job at an old school greengrocer: open fronted with a shutter, fake grass on old crates and price tickets hand written in that peculiar curly script unique to purveyors of fruit and veg.
How could I forget Dave Edmunds. A Cardiff boy like myself, he had a great 1979. Girls Talk is superb. I always think of GirlsTalk, written by Elvis Costello, Olivers Army by Elvis, and Cruel to be Kind by Nick Lowe, as the perfect trio of three minute power pop songs. All released within a few months of each other. Incredible!
I recently had occasion to watch Cruel to be Kind and discovered that the video is partly made up of Lowe’s wedding to Carlene Carter.
Brilliant. Haven’t seen that for years. Good old Dave Edmunds as well.
I didn’t realise that was real wedding footage! I saw NL with Rockpile in 1979 and I’ve got my ticket to see him in London in February. I wouldn’t be surprised if this creeps into the set! I think he may be the artist I’ve seen him at lots of venues where I just paid on the door so don’t have the ticket stubs to count up.
Oh good spot!
You make some excellent points here @alan33
Three great songs. All different, all the same.
Ha! You could be right. Basically the same song, with just the chords moved around. They are very similar, but still great songs in their own right.
Honestly, I wasn’t being sniffy! They are all great songs!
I’m the same age as Rij, Xmas 1979 I was 9 and 10 months. I spent Xmas at my cousins’ in Cornwall, four years and two years older than me. They had a Pioneer mini system with linear tracking arm, which their dad (a merchant seaman) had picked up in Japan.
Most of the holiday was spent laying on the dining room floor with our heads between the speakers listening to Brass In Pocket, Making Plans for Nigel and Jimmy Jimmy, as my head exploded. Talking Heads’ Fear of Music takes me straight back there, and still gives me the willies.
The drums on Making Plans still sound immense.
In 1979 I was 18. In the Upper 6th, I met the girl of my dreams and managed to get out of a drift down into a rather messier future than has turned out. That Christmas I was in Heaven, in love, floating through reality with very little real connection, though surviving some awkward home circumstances which shaped my eventual professional direction. After Christmas dinner at home i walked 4 miles to see her – you did in those days – and had more Christmas jollification with her and her family. The loved-upness lasted until 1983, where she dumped me. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but the best as well. I recall Christmas ’79 as a swirl of cigarette smoke, beer, patchouli kisses, old-school “Quality Street”s (they are not a patch on what they were), and the ubiquitous, and rather mediocre and unseemly “Another Brick In the Wall” on every pub jukebox. I thought I was so grown up, when I was so young.
A great story. Sometimes the worst things in life, do usually have a happy ending in the long run. You don’t feel that at the time though. Love your last sentence. I thought I knew everything at 18 too, and felt so grown up. How wrong we were.
I was so much younger then, I’m older than that now.
I just thought back and Christmas 1979 was a horror for me. My folks had divorced and my dad remarried a great candidate for the Wicked Witch of the West who hated his kids and the feeling was mutual. We had Christmas d6ay with them which was filled with an atmosphere of animosity such as I’ve never seen again. On top of which I had to miss Christmas TOTP and Tom Petty in Concert as the WWOTW had instigated a no telly rule. Awful, awful.
Subsequently I discovered they were already talking about splitting up and the following autumn they did. Happily Christmas 1980 was lovely, no bad vibes, no wicked witches and I got to watch TOTP.
Sorry to hear about that Twang. Missing Christmas TOTP in those days would have been unbearable. Glad you had a great Christmas the following year, although watching Christmas TOTP meant listening to the St Winifrieds School Choir. Who could forget that!
I was twelve in -79, and I remember that Christmas fondly – my Christmas presents included the new George Harrison album, which I played non stop through the holidays and to this day always have to listen to every Christmas.
Other gifts were a jigsaw puzzle (which I also turned into a Christmas tradition) and a whole stack of brilliant books.
Spending the next weeks reading, puzzling and eating holiday food/treats (and best of all, not in school; Hallelujah!) soundtracked by George was as close to an ideal Christmas as I can imagine.
Add to that the annual Christmas visit of my best friend to her grandparents (who lived across the street from me) for one of those weeks…good times!
Most other Christmases have melted together in a pleasant haze of nostalgia, but 1979 is the one year I can remember details from.
I bought the George Harrison album when it came out, and still have it today. It is a beautiful album, and one of my favourites, though it tends to get overlooked when people discuss the best of GH. Blow Away was always my favourite track, but they are all excellent, and I always feel better after listening to it. I will give it a spin this week, and maybe it could be an annual tradition like it is for you. Thanks for reminding me about it, and have a very Merry Christmas.
1979 was a weird one for me, the realisation that my 5 years of relative hedonism was drawing to a close. With no such thing as continuous assessment, my 3 years of clinical medicine were drawing to a close, the threat of finals a mere 6/12 away. Pathology exams were done and dusted, a cause to let off steam, with an elective period of 3/12 to look forward to, ahead the then 3/12 slog of cramming for exams in the other expectations. Reader, I was shit scared, having done little but drink for too many years. I recall a quiet Xmas with my parents, afore 3/12 in Wick, where Top of the Pops was truly the highlight: My Girl the song, by Madness, the song that stuck hardest.
That sounds like a lot of hard work, no wonder you needed a drink or two. My Girl is wonderful. It’s the song that always reminds me of when I first met my future wife.
1979 was the best of times and the worst of times. The old wave and the new wave. Staying at home with records, magazines, TV and books often worked out better than attempts at social interactions, trying to be with people but that cultural, inner world is still reality.
1979 was music, the NME, discovering the albums the NME Encyclopedia of Rock wrote about. Velvet Underground, The Doors, Bob Dylan, then new stuff like Joy Division, Talking Heads. Friends lending me Can, Van Der Graaf, Hendrix, Floyd. Borrowing jazz LPs from the library like Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk. Seeing Alien at the cinema with my girlfriend. It was all quite a heady brew for a youngster. It seemed like the old seventies and the coming shiny 80s all at the same time. I saw Talking Heads at the Hammersmith Palais and The Slits at Oxford New Theatre. Dub reggae was a thing too. All quite exciting really. I was hopelessly clueless and rather sophisticated somehow. Nothing changes. Interesting period. John Peel and post punk and all that but we still liked Cliff a bit.
I was 17 BTW. I bought PiL Metal Box. I still find it impressive. Nowadays, I also quite like a bit of Christopher Cross.
Your description of being 17 matches my own – except for me it was in 1978.
I recognise the omnivorous need to hear everything – and the NME Encyclopaedia of Rock was a fine map through it all.
I was also borrowing “weird” classical records from the library, since no one I knew seemed to listen to it: there was Mozart and church music in the house, but I wanted to hear Shostakovich and Sibelius and, and, and…
I bought Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire after seeing it on TV. Got it from Blackwell’s Music Shop where they didn’t sell any pop or rock. It was a bit challenging but enjoyable.
Some wonderful names there Diddley. Some old, new and some ancient. We all loved the fact that Cliff was number 1 in the charts. We thought he was old and past it. He was 39 that year!
Yes and we disparaged the past-it Strolling Bones. Should’ve stopped long ago. Who’d have thunk it?
Cliff though had We Don’t Talk Anymore which was a bit of a banger.
Have previously posted that 1979 was the best year ever for chart music. Incredible. I was 17, had still never been to a live rock gig, devoured the Christmas NME double issue and watched the Fabs films on TV. My last year at home full time before going to university and life changing forever.
There’s a few contenders for best year, depending on what age you are I suppose. But for me it was the last greatest year for pop music. I don’t think any of the 80s years come near it. The Fabs films was definitely the highlight for me that Christmas.
I was 21. My then girlfriend went to a different university, not too far away, and we commuted. It worked well for a while. She had a car, I had a scooter. 1979 was The Clash for a gig, followed by Chic at the disco on the same night. Loughborough, a quiet town, put on lots of gigs for its students: Undertones, Joy Division, Buzzcocks, etc. Birmingham had loads more. I think we saw The Jam three times that year.
She dumped me the following year, just as Talking Heads released Remain In Light.
Must have been something in the air , my girlfriend dumped me in 1980 too.
So many great gigs at the time, and cheap too. I saw The Jam and The Police that year as well.
Cheaper than buying an LP.
I kind of wish I could write like that for may periods in my life but I can tell you just what I was doing at Christmas 1979 because it was the only year in my life that I kept a daily diary.
The word bored or boring crops up several times over Christmas week. It was a very odd time as my dad was not really well but we had a typical quiet time with a visit from my newly married sister and one to our recently bereaved aunt.
On Christmas day, I watched TOTP and Caberet on TV along with a Morecombe and Wise chatshow which I have no memory of (I’m not sure I have a need to dig for it!).
1979 had been a very big year for us, I graduated and got my first full time job (I put it off as long as I could) I spent most of the next few months plotting a strategy to leave but, apart from an 8 year spell in the middle, I’ve been there aver since and love it. My sister got married in September and my Uncle died the following month. I started to get used to going to gigs alone and saw Rockpile, XTC, Undertones and Talking Heads to name a few. With all these events (and more) crammed into one year, I was pleased I’d recorded it all on paper. Sadly, the only entry on the final day of the year is ‘Dad died’. I’ve never even considered keeping a diary since!
I do keep a daily diary. I was inspired after reading Michael Palin’s diaries. I’ve been doing it about fifteen years now, and never miss a day. It’s become a bit addictive. I never did as a child or teenager, although I now wish I had. As for recalling events, between about 1975 to 1989 is crystal clear in my mind. Everything after that seems to blur into one big mishmash.
Nice article Alan. I have one question: what made an 18 year old a massive Beatles fan in 1979? The reason I’m asking is that my brother is about the sake age as you and one thing I’ve noticed is that he and his friends don’t seem to be big Beatles fans. Bowie, yes, Springsteen yes, but they don’t seem to have a fondness for the 60s stuff.
I honestly can’t remember how it started, but The Beatles have been a part of my life since at least 10 years old. That’s 53 years now, and the fascination is still there, though maybe not as much as in my teenage years or twenties. The radio was always on when I was little, and I must have been absorbing all these different tunes. My first album was Sgt Pepper, bought when I was 11. Our music teacher in high school kept playing tracks from it, and I just had to have it. That led me on a discovery which is hard to explain in a few words. My older brother played me She Loves You, and told me it was the same band. How could that possibly be? I became obsessed, and by the age of fifteen I had all their albums. I was still a normal teenager into all the latest music fashions, Bowie, Roxy, Bolan, Glam rock, Punk rock, New Wave, I was even a mad Status Quo fan, but the thread holding it all together was a band that split up when I was nine years old. We can’t really choose our obsessions, they choose us I think, but I’m so glad I did fall head first for the Fab Four, as they have given me a lifetime of pleasure.
I can also confirm that today’s universal Beatle consensus (that they were a great thing) was by no means prevalent in 1979. Generally they were in the same box as ABBA, really. As a child I distinctly remember seeing and enjoying Yellow Submarine on TV. Also my prog-lovin’ older brother had the blue compilation which I played a great deal while he was out. As I got older, I went backwards chronologically. This means I’d fallen for I am the Walrus way before discovering She Loves You. The first LP I bought with my own pocket money was the MFP compilation “Rock & Roll Music Vol 2” for about two quid from the local Woolies.
When I was 14, there was this kid in my class who was into them way more than I was. This is what we first talked about and he’s still my best friend now.
I remember 1979 as I was 17 and in the Upper 6th and glad that Pink Floyd were number one in the charts. Christmas would have been spent at home with my parents and sister, grandparents and possibly a great aunt.
A few days after Xmas, I went to the local library and bumped into a classmate who recommended a couple of Roy Harper cassettes (Sophisticated Beggar and Bullinamingvase) which completely changed my taste in music and it was the start of a close friendship based on music that persists to this day (he was also best man at my wedding). He did, however, also tell me his Christmas had been bad as his father had died. As a 17 year old I wasn’t well equipped to offer much empathy.
I remember New Year’s Eve that year as I went to a party and got pretty drunk. I remember that some of us were speculating about where we’d all be in 2000 (shades of Jarvis Cocker). I’m not sure if it was that party or a later one at the same house, but someone fell through a glass door and severed tendons in his arm. There was quite a bit of blood!
Happy Christmas everyone.
I had just left school and, directionless, took a temporary job in the local chicken factory. My best friend was hosting a sale at his house. A lifetime of disappointment and disillusion held no appeal, so he was open to offers on all his Leeds United paraphernalia. Countless metal badges, rings, hats, pennants, scarves. Six scarves! Back then we wore them dangling from our wrists – in imitation of recent chart phenomenon The Bay City Rollers -I guess. Well I threw all my chicken factory money at him and bought the lot- saved him a lifetime of angst.
Musically back then Kate Bush had spun in from outer space; Sounds- and more particularly Gary Bushell-were pushing The Cockney Rejects; I was gravitating more towards City Boy. My life was about to change dramatically, but that would be next year!
2 tone?
Two broken legs.
1979 was the best year ever for pop/rock music.
I was 14 so I might be blighted by the teenage fandom but looking back at the charts from then it was wall to wall quality.
Christmas 79 and I was 10 (11 the following February)
I remember The Beatles films being on.
“Magical Mystery Tour” I thought was weird, “Shea Stadium”,”Help!” and “Yellow Submarine” I thoroughly enjoyed. Didn’t see the other 2 until years later.
I also got my first cassette recorder that year and recall taping Top Of The Pops and having to keep shusshing various family members when a good song came on.
This was the year that I really began to take an interest in music and by the following year started to buy “Smash Hits” on a regular basis.
Great times!
I don’t remember anything about Beatles movies on TV. At that point any Beatles interest had largely faded away apart from one or two songs and didn’t return until the 90s when my then partner had certain Beatles cassettes I started exploring.
In 1979 I started taping radio1. Pretenders Brass In Pocket was one. Then it was Peel sessions. Siouxsie, Echo and the Bunnymen. Also Saturday afternoon rock show with Alan Freeman and Gambo’s US chart show. Music was in abundance.
Interest in The Beatles picked up the following year after Lennon was shot. Anthology was in the nineties which also brought their music to another generation.