Are the Seventies Finally En Vogue?
Sandi Thom is the latest Latest Thing in pop…and actually she’s not bad. Her debut single (do the young ones still call them singles?) is ‘I Wish I was A Punk Rocker’. My recently-turned-11-years-old daughter is playing it incessantly on her shuffle and insisted I listen to it too – as if this was a new discovery. Here are the lyrics.
[Chorus:]
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
In ’77 and ’69 revolution was in the air
I was born too late into a world that doesn’t care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hairWhen the head of state didn’t play guitar
Not everybody drove a car
When music really mattered and when radio was king
When accountants didn’t have control
And the media couldn’t buy your soul
And computers were still scary and we didn’t know everything[Chorus]
When pop stars still remained a myth
And ignorance could still be bliss
And when god saved the queen she turned a whiter shade of pale
My mom and dad were in their teens
And anarchy was still a dream
And the only way to stay in touch was a letter in the mail[Chorus]
When record shops were still on top
And vinyl was all that they stocked
And the super info highway was still drifting out in space
Kids were wearing hand me downs
And playing games meant kick arounds
And footballers still had long hair and dirt across their face[Chorus]
I was born too late into a world that doesn’t care
Oh I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair
I laughed when I asked whether or not she knew what it meant. She said no, just that it was a cool song. I laughed because this song is about my early teens (at least the 77 bit not the 69). I laughed, ruefully, when I realised that the latest cool thing is a retrospective on the years I lived through.
But I laughed again when I noticed that the song expresses Thom’s disappointment at not being part of 1977, and the early days of anarchic punk. Though I just entered my teens that year, I have always been led to believe that the 70s were the ‘Decade That Taste Forgot’…could it be that finally, even the 70s are in vogue?
But Pitzy just thinks her dad is old.