The Currency Of Pop. Week 1. Ep 2.

A few years after the Beatles "moment", I had gradually started to get my head round this pop music lark. And had also discovered something called "rock". And a strange DJ called John Peel who was on Radio 1 from 10pm till midnight during the week. I am not even going to begin to get into the impact that Peel had on me as we would be here for hours, days, weeks...

But one specific Peel show comes to mind when talking about this next single.

My Dad passed away suddenly in October 1976 when I was 14 (and my sisters just 4). The next summer some friends of the family let my Mum and us have a holiday in their caravan, to get away from it all for a bit I guess. We got as far as Burton Constable which isn't very far at all. Oddly (or maybe not) the only memory I really have of that holiday is listening to Peel at night on a little radio with a single earphone. On one of the shows he featured a session from one of the new fangled punky people with the frankly ridiculous name of Elvis Costello. It was another of those moments. From memory I think the session consisted of Red Shoes, Blame It On Cain, Less Than Zero and Mystery Dance. Anyway, it was very much the start of something very new and very excellent. Looking back, though, those songs weren't a million miles away from You Can't Do That, with their vitriol and anger.

As soon as I got home I bought the album My Aim Is True, and shortly after this single.

Watching The Detectives/Blame It On Cain & Mystery Dance (Stiff - BUY 20). 

Everything had changed. In many different ways.