Friday 19 February 2010

131 Songs - Number 23

Number 23 - Green Onions by Booker T and the MG's

What a coincidence. Just as I was thinking about the next music for this series, and this track in particular, I was sitting in the cinema in Milton Keynes watching the calm but sad story of A Single Man when Juliana Moore (it being 1962) puts on a record. Suddenly we are treated to a loud blast of the instrumental Green Onions. As Juliana and Colin Firth dance their version of the twist, I go back to the autumn of 1963.

After leaving school, I spent my first few weeks of working for George Wimpey at Hammersmith. But by the end of September we were off to the south coast for our first five weeks of our five year Quantity Surveying block release course at Brighton College of Advanced Technology (which became Brighton Polytechnic and is now part of the University of Brighton). Our digs were in Hove and six of us shared various bedrooms. We also had the use of the front living room and here was a the record player owned by the daughters of our landlord. They had very few records, but one of them was Booker T's wonderful instrumental. It was played so often, I should have tired of listening to it, but I did not. And listening to it again all these years later was a truly moving experience.

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