When I wake up in the morning during the week these days I make my way downstairs in darkness to my desk. Think about my day ahead, plan my lessons. I generally have one starting between half seven and nine and then others scattered across the morning. I'm usually done by two.
Then I ask myself whether I'll be going to the pool. It's best practice. Then think about my blog and what I have to write about in the coming hours. I'm getting older but it's still a routine I like to adhere to if I can. Where would the world be without the Blog That No One Needs or Reads . I consider this an odd kind of public service. Oh pish. Really it's just a habit. A routine I've got into which works for me.
A part of my routine is listening to an album in the morning that will put me in the mood for the coming day of lessons. Something that will set me in motion for the day. The record .that I want to listen to will generally come to me in the bath. The bath is generally very good for quality thoughts. My mind settles on things I convince myself are profound and insightful. I refer you to Archimedes. .
OK. My thoughts are not as profound or insightful as that guy's. But they generally work for me. Last Monday morning the realisation came that the record I wanted to listen to was Kilimanjaro by The Teardrop Explodes. I was right. It's still as fantastic as the day it was released. . It put me in the most glorious mood for my lessons. For the working week.
That band were one of my earliest musical choices as a spotty fifteen year old. Reward being played on my mini bedside transistor as I readied myself in the morning and headed off to catch the bus to school from Richmond Station.
Reward was a Top Ten hit early in 1981, the band's commercial breakthrough and they were such a captivating, romantic proposition for a teenage boy falling in love with the world through literature and music. A gang on god know's what. A vision of bohemianism and flight. I immediately fell for Liverpool which clearly had the best scene, vibe and pure romanticism going. It seemed so far away to my unformed mind. Signalled where I wanted to go. At least emotionally. Spiritually too. .
Kilimanjaro still casts it spell. A cauldron bubbling. The production is of its time but that matters not one whit. The lyrics are inspired. How could people so young know so much about the duplicitous but utterly compelling way in which the world operated. The tunes are a waking dream. With time I tracked down where they came from. Love, The Doors, The 13th Floor Elevators, Television, Pere Ubu, The Fall. The Golden Lineage. The Teardrops did not last for long. But Julian Cope in particular I consider as a spiritual mentor. He knows more than most of us ever will.
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