Easter Parade

I think that it's only fitting to give this track another airing, what with the 30th anniversary of the Falklands Conflict being all over the news this past week and also the fact that it is Easter Sunday.

I watched Max Hastings piece about the conflict last Sunday, which got me reaching for my copy of Don't Cry For Me Sergeant Major, as his recollections of his participation differs slightly from what I remember being written in that book and I think I may also revisit  "A Soldier's Song", to further remind me of my brother's regiment's role in the conflict over the coming weeks.

At the time I was in second year in high school and got into a couple of fights and even more arguments over what seemed to me at the time as a hyping up of nationalistic fervour for islands that very few of us knew existed before the start of April 1982. I will also never forget the front page of the Sun the day after the sinking of the Belgrano for bringing to the fore all that was wrong with Britain at that time.

I feel that I need to add, that I never had anything but support for the Airmen, Sailors and Infantry sent down there, they were doing what the military had to do, enduring conditions nobody should have to put up with and which I certainly could not have endured.  As for John Knott, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Leach and the rest of the old men in suits that sent them there, well contempt doesn't really express what I felt at the time and still do. Also the justification that the conflict saw the demise of a dictatorship in South America doesn't really cut it when we weren't calling for democracy in Chile where Mrs Thatcher's pal, Pinochet was in charge.

But enough of the politics this song means a lot to me for a whole different reason which has been explained before here .

The Faith Brothers - Easter Parade

Easter Parade

"Hoi, where's the dance tunes?" I hear at least one of you mutter.

Well seeing as it's Easter, I thought me might have something different this Friday from the usual,  well,  past it's sell by date Friday feature. Another reason would be that I couldn't decide which dance track to pick on account of having given it absolutely no thought whatsoever this week.

Instead I thought that I would regale you with a story that explains no matter how many times Mr H over at The Ghost Of Electricity posts the Jones Girls or something similar I will always stick up for him and "gie him hauners" if the need ever arises.

When I was seventeen I went on my final caravan holiday with the family to Polperro, not a prospect I was overjoyed about at the time, being cooped up in the back of the car with my brother for the best part of 2 days and then spending a fortnight in a tin can on wheels with three other human beings in close proximity.

When we got there I kind of mumped and moaned my way through the first week, doing as little as possible, spending a small fortune on batteries for my red Sony Walkman and generally being an arse. However at the end of week one I met a girl from Ashington in Northumberland and things started to pick up. We had a liking for the same kind of music, Northern Soul and Indie and both had an interest in scooters.  We got on really well and were nearly inseparable for the next week,  my last but L's first.

At the end of the week as we said goodbye L gave me a tape, "something to remember me by" she said. On the way home I put the tape in the Walkman and listened to it with a heavy heart. It was all northern soul, the stuff that the purists sneer at,  Frankie Valli's The Night, The Snake, Out On The Floor and the like.  At the end of the tape however, there was a track that didn't fit in with the rest, an acoustic guitar strummed ballad sung by someone who to me at the time sounded a lot like Pete Wylie. I played the tape over and over again and made myself miserable thinking of my holiday romance. The tape however lasted only slightly longer than the relationship and snapped before I ever found out who it was by or even what the song was called.

I would be lying if I told you that ever since the song has haunted me. But it has popped into my head every so often and I have wondered what the hell the song was but had given up all hope of ever solving the mystery and over the years I had even forgotten the melody and could only remember the two words Easter Parade.

A couple of years ago while perusing the Ghost Of Electricity one day, Davy had posted a song by the Faith Brothers, a group who up until this point I had been criminally oblivious of. Davy waxed lyrical about Billy Franks so much so that I decided that he and the Faith Brothers warranted further investigation. So I visited Franks' website where there was loads of stuff to download and so I duly did. When I listened to the tracks I couldn't believe it; in amongst a lot of really good songs was the song that I had first heard from that Panda cassette over twenty years earlier and duh! it was called Easter Parade.

A few weeks later after finding a copy of a double pack Faith Brothers single containing the tune and being successful in the bidding I finally got to play the track without hiss or being ever so slightly wonky due to the tape being stretched and it was every bit as wonderful if not more and when I further found out what the single was about (wounded soldiers returning from the Falklands conflict and not being allowed to take part in the homecoming parade, at Thatcher's behest) it became even more moving.

So that is the convoluted story of why Davy H is a legend in my book.

Have a good Easter weekend people.

Faith Brothers - Easter Parade

Easter Parade

For those of you who read the comments on The Ghost Of Electricity I apologize for repeating myself.

When I was 17 I went on my last caravaning holiday with my folks to Polperro in Cornwall. Getting there was an ordeal two days in the back of the car arguing and trading blows with my younger brother wasn't the best start to a holiday.

Once there, I loved it. Polperro was a great place and full of teenage girls. That year I had a secret weapon with me to aid in the attempt to meet members of the opposite sex, a three month old golden retriever pup and it worked like a dream. The best ploy was to go down into the village from the caravan site buy an ice cream, find a bench then feed the pup the cone, no need for awkward conversation starters then.

I'm not sure if this is how I met the girl from Ashington but it did work a couple of times. The girl was a year younger than me and slightly gothic in dress sense, I've always been wary of goths but she was alright, no "woes me" and she even smiled. As with any meeting of teenagers the talk got around to what are you into (musically) and it turned out she was into northern soul just like myself and that was that we were inseparable for the second week of my holiday.

When we were packing up to come home L came over and gave me a compilation tape, full of northern soul and some indie stuff. We said our goodbyes and how we would stay in touch etc etc. On the way home I played the tape, all of the usual suspects were there, The Night, Picture Me Gone, etc but at the end of side 2 there was this acoustic track which vocally, to me then sounded like Pete Wylie but of course I couldn't discover what it was as there was no track listing with the tape. I played this song over and over again so much that the tape got stretched, it was on a cheap Panda cassette and eventually snapped not long after and before I found out what the song was.

Over the years the vague recollection of the song has popped into my head from time to time but by this time I couldn't remember the words only the phrase "easter parade".

Last October I was checking out Davy H's excellent blog as you do and he had posted a track by the Faith Brothers, which I duly down loaded, listened to and decided that this Billy Franks fellow warranted further investigation so I downloaded the tracks from his website and lo and behold the track called The Easter Parade was the very track which had been annoying me for the last 20 odd years on and off.

Last week, I eventually found a copy of the double pack single of the Faith Brothers - The Country of The Blind, the second single of which contains The Easter Parade.

The song is another anti war song, there have been a couple of those here this week. It deals with the aftermath of the Falklands campaign and the fact that Thatcher did not want any wounded servicemen taking part in the parades which followed the troops return.

I have posted both the single version and the album one (courtesy of Mr H) as they are a bit different.

Faith Brothers - Easter Parade (Eventide version)
Faith Brothers - Easter Parade (single version)