Life in a small town.

I admit it, I have relapsed into nostalgia. I know how it came to pass. I was fully aware of the dangers and had been trying to avoid situations that might start me off again. Then last night I was talking to a 15 year old girl and she was so bright and funny, full of life and naïve self-confidence, I started remembering what it was like when I walked among such creatures. Anyway now I'm infected, and I might as well lie back and enjoy it's bitter sweet pleasures. So rose- tinted glasses on, and here are some more self- indulgent ramblings about a past that probably never happened quite the way I remember it anyway.

Here are some songs that take me back to the time I was courting Mrs P.

Somethin' Else.The Sex Pistols.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHhrgCNA3co

There was a party/dance/disco every week and this one was often playing when we met up in the very early days. I was an agricultural student - a horny handed son of the soil, we didn't really do punk. But we used to throw ourselves around to it in an ironic way. (Ironical pogoing?)

Breakfast in America. Supertramp.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xUuy...feature=fvwrel
Lying in her room singing the opening lines over each other at the top of our voices. (She would change the words to “boyfriend”) A simple pleasure but our own – we would laugh so hard it hurt. Having a permanent, serious girl /boyfriend was sort of new and we were enjoying it. It was all part of my rehabilitation from knob-headedness. I was beginning to learn that, like The Beatles song, if you play it cool, you make the world a little bit colder. You're also a pillock!

Livin' Thing. ELO. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiYdFbH4nNw
This was her favourite, I liked it too and didn't complain as long I got to play my Thin Lizzie- Live and Dangerous, as an antidote.

I Just Cant Help Believin'. Elvis. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyKtRoGiNIM
Like Maverick and Moose in Top Gun, me and my mate Jim, had a routine around this song featuring his famous – what Elvis would sound like if he could - impression, and my falsetto backing vocals. After about 6 pints it's brilliance emerged.

“Oh I just can't help believin'.”
“Shing your shong.”
“Oh I just can't help believin'.”
“One more time.”
“Oh I just can't help believin'.”
“One more.
“Oh I just can't keep singin' like this”
“And again”
“Oh I really want to stop now”
“Keep goin'”
“Oh why are you making me do this.”
“Cos I'm Elvis.”
“Oh my God there go my tonsils”
...and so on...
In those days I put on a front of outrageous confidence. It was such an effort and needed a lot of beer. Thank goodness that's all past.

There were many other songs, Elton John, Queen, Bee Gees, Lionel Richie. But they are timeless classics rather than time specific. Nostalgia doesn't work like that. A lesser played song, Robert Palmer's Every kind of People, sends me right back to a particular night in a particular cottage where I can still smell the wood fire and taste the wine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tEH_...eature=related