Recently, I asked Mark if he would write a piece about his passion for music. After being introduced to Mark by The Good Life Society a few years ago, I’ve watched Mark speak publicly and interview people on his Monday Communion many times. At some point in every conversation the discussions involve music, and it’s clear to see the passion that Mark has for it when he speaks.
“I danced myself right out the womb, I danced myself right out the womb, Is it strange to dance so soon, I danced myself right out the womb”, Marc Bolan
I remember dancing in the lounge of our maisonette in Coventry.
It was 1971. T-Rex were playing on Top of the Pops. I remember it as them performing “Ride a White Swan” but a quick internet search tells me that they performed that song in November 1970.
That would have made me only two years and two months old. Now I do have a great memory but I suspect it may have been a year later and therefore “Get It On”. It kind of doesn’t matter. I was hooked. Hooked on Bolan and hooked on music.
It made me feel more. It made me feel great if I wanted to be great and it made me feel sad if I wanted to be sad. I like that. It amplified me. I could also use it to change how I felt. But Bolan was amazing, strutting, androgenous, showy, and he played (essentially) rock and roll. After Bolan came Bowie, then Punk, then Ska, then New Romantic, then C86, then The Smiths, then Martin Stephenson, then The Stone Roses, then rave, then grunge, then early Blur. I’ll stop there. But it didn’t stop there.
Lost in music, caught in a trap, no turning back. I’m lost in music. Sister Sledge
I want to talk about pop music (pop, pop, pop, muzik). And how it makes me move. I’ve always danced: glam rock swagger, punk rock pogo, disco strutting, new romantic posing, indie stagger, euphoric raving. But I have no musical skill. I have rhythm and I sure can dance. But I can’t play any instruments or carry a tune in a bucket. But I love moving. Music keeps me moving, music kept me fit, music keeps me young.
When I moved to London and knew few people I would go to Indie night at the (then) Camden Palais on my own and just dance. It never felt lonely. I found friends there and we danced together. I DJed (badly), I went to gigs, I went to Dingwalls, I sang on the bus (badly). I danced in the kitchen. I went to Rock and Roll nights with my friend Annie. I mainly sang The Pet Shop Boys, I love them because you can sing along even when you can’t really sing). I also love the Pet Shop Boys because there is a darker edge to their lyrics, lyrics that sit on top of bubblegum pop and soaring strings. Beautifully contradictory.
When my wife was pregnant, I sang to her bump. Beatles, Stones, Donovan, Stone Roses. I sang to the kids, we sing in the car. I took them to gigs. We have a family car playlist. It’s not just my music, they introduce me to theirs. Each month or so I pull together a new playlist: Woodshed Sounds (you can find it on Spotify) and I love it. It would be easy to get lazy and live between 1985 and 1992 but the world is bigger than that and we sit at one of the most exciting times in art and music. We are due a renaissance and I think music will lead it. It will be inextricably bound with social progression. Music always has been. Poetry put to music to make you move. Imagine a world without it. I bet you can’t.
Things have moved forward again. We are now grandparents and our granddaughter lives with us (and her parents). We dance every night. Sometimes to Baby Shark, sometimes to Olivia Rodrigo, sometimes to Blur, and sometimes to Matt Sewell’s Gayatari Mantra. Her urgency to dance curtails eating tea sometimes. It’s a joy to leave my food cooling and dance with a two year old, as I did when I was a two year old.
