51. I Wanna Be Adored – The Stone Roses

I was talking to a 21 racing driver the other day, as I have a tendency to do, and we started talking about music, which happens far more rarely than I’d like. Racing drivers tend to be nerds, more or less – it’s an incredibly hard thing to do, because it takes over so much of your life if you want to be even vaguely competitive – and so they don’t tend to have any interests other than racing and training, which makes it notable when they have an interest in anything else.

And this guy had just finished a law degree, just to make him even more of a rarity: I’m always impressed when sportsman actually pick up a degree in anything, even someone like Romain Bardet getting a business degree, and to do all that and still have enough left over to be funny is unprecedented.

Anyway, he namechecked a few bands and I mentioned I’d seen some of them live, and he said he’d been to see the Stone Roses: not because he chose to, but because his friend had suggested it and, as he’s always racing these days, he has no time to see his friend and therefore acquiesced. And then he did what he always does, which is research.
“Have you heard of them?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Oh. I couldn’t find much of their music online.”
“They only had 2 albums, at least until now.”
“That makes sense. Were they famous?”
“You mean back when you were being born? Uh huh.”
“I felt really, really young there.”
“That’s because everyone else in the crowd probably has kids your age. Some of them because of the Stone Roses.”
“Do all their songs sound the same?”
“Pretty much, but it’s a good beat.”
“Why was everyone in the crowd wearing bucket hats?”
“Because they’re drummer used to wear them constantly.”
“Their drummer?”
“Yeah, because he was the cool one in the band. And their guitarist is an actual artist.”
“I don’t really get it.”
“Don’t worry, there’s not much to get.”
“I wondered, because the crowd went properly insane when they came out.”
“It’s an English thing.”
“So you think it’s weird too.”
“Yeah, but I do like Fools Gold. And Adored.”
“Which one is that?”
“The big epic sounding one.”
“Which one is that?”
“Nevermind.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D2qcbu26gs