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Ryuichi Sakamoto & David Sylvian 2022: as per the back cover of the 1983 Japanese 7" release of Forbidden Colours, Sylvian wrote the lyrics to the song on 16, February 1983. On that day (a Wednesday) Ronald Reagan was US President and Andropov leader of the Soviet Union (remember the time after Brezhnev had finally shuffled off this mortal coil when the Russian leaders seemed to come and go at a drop of a hat until Gorbachev was the last man standing, it seemed?) whilst a series of bushfires swept across South Australia and Victoria resulting in the loss of 75 lives and the destruction of more than 3,000 buildings. In the UK, Kajagoogoo's Too Shy flirted with the top 5 singles chart. The intellectual's brand of cigarettes, Gitanes, was £1.29 for a pack of 20; the rest of us paid £1.22 for our John Player Specials (even by the 1980s smoking was still considered OK. Not 'cool' I would say but 'acceptable' behaviour nonetheless - how times have changed, rightly so in this case). You could expect to pay 67p for a pint of bitter and The London Travelcard was still three months away from seeing the light of day. Our journeys were still measured by the distance and point to point. Minder was still huge on our TV sets. Ah, Minder. What an absolute joy of a show. If you thought you were hard you hadn't met Terry McCann. An ex-boxer, he'd have you. Any day of the week. No matter what the problem he'd sort it. And always within an hour. Remarkable. George Cole as Arthur is still an iconic figure. Even today, anyone doing anything a little bit dodgy could be referred to as Arthur Daley. What an actor. George Cole. One of the most watchable figures, watchable faces, I have ever seen, My favourite Arthur Daley moment is when he's got a load of oversized coats to sell and he's going around getting people to try them on and grasping a huge load of the coat behind their back saying: 'Fits you like a glove'. Or he's takes on a youngster as a Minder and tells him he's the hardest thing since sliced bread. The kid believes him and goes to sort out some hardened geezers in a snooker club and the next shot you see is the youngster coming out looking, shall we say, worst for wear. If you missed out on the sheer entertainment of Minder then catch it @ amazon.co.uk. Sylvian was already a very serious artist by 1983 and there would have been more chance of hell freezing over than him doing the theme tune. Even if he had expressed an interest there would have been no chance of Dennis Waterman letting him muscle in. 'I could be so good for you...' was Waterman's message to the world and his alone. Ever after no one has been allowed to express even an interest in doing the theme tune of any show he's starred in. Greedy boy. Isn't it strange, looking back, on how serious we were in them times? Certainly, in the UK the music factions rivalled the tribalism usually associated to football. It's hard now just to convey how important music was to a generation. There were Durannies, Spandau fans, Wham! followers, a bit later a-ha disciples, whilst the more discerning among us (at least we thought we were more discerning) favoured Japan. I remember how upset I was when my brother solemly told me after Wham! had disbanded that he'd heard on the grapevine that Andrew Ridgeley was forming a supergroup with Sylvian to be called Whamapan. I thought Sylvian had sold out. But I guess it shows I've always been a mug to have ever believed such a story. Going back to Forbidden Colours, the Japanese 7" vinyl release has the handwritten lyrics to the song printed on the reverse of the cover as well as a lyric sheet. I have just got in one of these rare items.
Also available: art books @ ebay.co.uk
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(Shipped from UK) (Price includes UK postage & packaging only. Outside UK here)
2022: 1 back in stock. Condition: 'near mint'.
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