Clear White Light
On stage it’s the best feeling in the world to know you’re communicating with the majority of the audience and it’s the biggest motive for being in a band — it’s the biggest thing to do to go on stage and be the audience, where there’s no them and us
Alan Hull
Is it just me, or do other people have a musical decade with which they ‘identify’?
My reflection this week is of ‘my’ decade; the nineteen-seventies. A decade that saw, among other music types; Glam Rock, Punk Rock, Heavy Metal and Reggae and as the decade came to its end, Disco. I never did ‘gel’ with Disco. That’s another thought that springs to mind. While I much enjoyed a lot of the music of the seventies, most of the nineteen-eighties music left me cold. Again, is that the same with others? That the music decade following ‘their’ decade is something of a turn-off?
The seventies was quite a decade for me. I entered it as a thirteen-year-old. Not a naive thirteen-year-old either, as I had already discovered beer, smoking and girls. By its mid-point I had taken ‘O’-Levels, ‘A’-Levels, left my native northeast to live and work in London and married. By its end, I’d bought my first house (well had a mortgage) and changed my Forensic Chemistry career to one in the Defence Industry.
All along this journey, I acquired a liking for the music of the decade. There were the meaningful Simon and Garfunkel, Springsteen, Don McLean, Joan Armatrading and Lindisfarne. The less deep T-Rex, Motown, and Slade (although their rendition of Steppenwolf’s, ‘Born to be Wild’ takes some beating). Also into my mix were bands such as The Eagles and Led Zeppelin. An eclectic assortment although as with Disco, I didn’t really ‘get’ Punk.
My favourite band at the beginning of the seventies was Lindisfarne. They’ve remained one of my favourites ever since. If it had not been for COVID, last December would have seen me at their 50th Anniversary concert at Newcastle’s City Hall. It’s not the original line-up. The passing of time has sadly seen the passing of some members. Springsteen’s E Street band also became a firm favourite by the end of the seventies, and they too remain that today. Again, though it’s not the original line-up.
Alan Hull wrote many of Lindisfarne’s songs. I would not put him on a par with Springsteen, but for a brief period after the release of the band’s first album, ‘Nicely out of Tune’, many hailed Alan’s songs and Lindisfarne as the next ‘big thing’.
I don’t intend to offer some lengthy treatise on why a band, singer or piece of music resonates with someone. I know in my case, and as with any art form, its whether it moves me. Is the song or piece of music telling a ‘story’ I recognise, believe in and care about? That explains my early appreciation of Lindisfarne.
Much of Alan Hull’s writing was of an area, people, and social outlook that I readily recognised and with which I identified. That’s true of Springsteen too. His songs are of the human condition. Of working life. Of ordinary life. He freely admits that when it comes to working life, it’s not one he experienced. However, he is enough of a poet to draw out its meaning by observation of others.
Take Springsteen’s ‘My Hometown’. I’ve no real-life experience of small-town America or the racial tension mentioned in the song. Still, otherwise, the lyric is of small towns anywhere. It’s of one’s identification with the place in which they grew up. And of family. It may be a textile mill in the song, but I ‘hear’ coal mine, and either way, those jobs were never coming back. I’ve lived in many towns and cities over the years, but a small piece of me will always see ‘home’ as a mining town in England’s northeast.
Take a meaningful lyric expressed poetically and then add music composed in sympathy with that lyric, and to me the result is magic. Whether it is a soulful ballad or powerful rock.
So, given the array of music from the 1970s of what have I chosen? It must be Lindisfarne. And I’m sure they might feature again over the coming weeks as no doubt will Springsteen. You never know, there might even be something from the eighties.
I’ve chosen ‘Clear White Light’ from the ‘Nicely out of Tune’ album. Alan Hull wrote it while working as a psychiatric nurse in St Nicholas Hospital in a Newcastle suburb. He also wrote, ‘We Can Swing Together’, ‘Fog on the Tyne’ and ‘Lady Eleanor’, at that time. Sadly, Alan died in 2011 although his music went on to inspire the play, ‘Clear White Light’. A moving and evocative piece set in St Nicholas Hospital with the backdrop of Alan’s music. The play always sells out quickly on its short production runs.
Anyway, enough of me here’s ‘Clear White Light’ …
