23. Relax – Frankie Goes To Hollywood

I really loved the Frankies: there was just something about them that really hit me (with a laser beam) at some primal level. It was probably the bass line. And they got me just at that period where I had plenty of money from working on my paper round and nothing much to spend it on, so I bought all the various versions of 12” singles they released. And the t-shirts.

It’s funny that I never saw any other level to the song, I just loved it for its drive: it’s so obvious in retrospect. And that’s without seeing the video. A few years later when I moved out of home I used to go to the gay bars on Oxford Street all the time: they played the best music, and all the girls used to go there so they wouldn’t get hit on. I used to get hit on all the time, because I was young and skinny, but I never realised it because I’ve always been stupid like that, and if I couldn’t tell when a girl liked me how would I know when a boy did? I realised I was old when I noticed that gay guys didn’t hit on me anymore. Ho hum.

It’s a shame those clubs weren’t actually as good as this, although it does remind me of going clubbing after Mardi Gras at the Hordern Pavillion, and when I went for a wee I looked down and there was a bloke sort of swimming his way along the trough: “keep going, don’t mind me” he insisted, but it stopped me in my tracks. Undeterred, he just moved on to the next punter.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCpz3LAjxek