It’s taken 30 years.
But I think it’s time for me to forgive Tony Hadley.
I’ve held a grudge
since 1983, while watching Spandau Ballet do True on Top of the Pops.
Top of the Pops, the
now defunct flagship pop music programme of the BBC (1964 – 2006) was, despite
its manifold shortcomings, essential viewing in the pre-MTV era.
The big drawback was
that one had to endure parental satire while watching.
Aged Parent: Why can’t
you get a nice short haircut like him? [“Him” being Tony Hadley, singer with
The Spands]
Me: Fnnnnugh!
Aged P: And look! He’s
even wearing a tie! Wearing a tie, short hair AND he's top of the hit parade!
Which was worse? Tony Hadley wearing a tie and being held up as a sartorial paragon? Or Aged P uttering the phrase “Hit Parade”? On reflection, I think the latter.
I am also a little
better disposed towards True these days, having since discovered that it was a love song
inspired by Clare Grogan of Altered Images.
Besides, I’m a grown
man now with neckties of my own.
So… sorry Tony. It wasn't your fault after all. I blame my parents. My
mother still insists on saying “Hit Parade”. They eff you up, your mum and dad,
as Philip Larkin famously wrote. He was obviously no stranger to watching TOTP
with his ma and pa.
So where does True fit in to my record collection? Nowhere… until I got married (more of that another day).
But I did buy Lifeline (1982), The Spands' big leap out of culty New Romanticism (i.e. chart failure) into mainstream pop. On TOTP Big Tone was dressed for grouse shooting – a look that was mad even for the 80s. The opening line of the songs stays with me to this day:
"Changing her colours she's off to the shore/He rides the soul train and she fights the law"
What is it all about? Still no idea.
