Stay Free

For Jason

I will never love another band the way I love The Clash. It is a love that will never die, they are, to rehash the cliche, the only band that mattered.

No one quite shared that belief with me as much as my friend Jason, who died recently.

When we were 14 we saw The Clash play in Bath Pavilion on Nov 3 1978. It was so long ago, but remains one of the great evenings of my life.

As my friend Anna said of those concerts; we walked through doors where our parents would not, and could not follow. It was the first great step.

This is draft about that evening. Jason and I were working on it. We had a larger project in mind…

Walk In.

The Clash. November 3 1978

Another pre-Christmas discontented darkness.

November.

childish joy receding.

Emptiness and questions rip through the new tide.

Buses lit like cold galleons

sailing home.

The bus ride, the walk, the cycle

3 channel TV.

2 Ronnies.

Irish jokes

Butterflies and Different Strokes.

Sat with parents. At odds. Peter and the wolf, the child’s guide, Beatles, John Denver, Glen Campbell, Eagles.

Gentle sounds of love and distance

Measured, calm.

Peaceful, easy, feelings. At odds.

Music. ONJ, ELP, CSN, ELO

Initials dominate music show

Top of the pops

Kid Jensen hosts

Saville, muppets, rentaghost

4 horsemen required, anticipated. Anointed.

Urgently awaited,

cigarette breath,

fish-finger baited.

II

Army surplus and council clothing.

Mini-miners trooping uphill, downhill, cross-town trafficking,

tracking Kerouac’s kicks.

Still reading WW2 comics,

wearing surplus; green and blue.

Hard, not groovy times.

Waiting for everything. Buses. Girls. Cigarettes, Hope

Waiting for four horsemen

arrival in our town.

Unbelievable to think it.

More than any other band - they would be here in the same space breathing the same cigarette, cider spit-filled air.

III

The quiet leaving of the house,

TV fading behind curtain’s cold glass.

Same programme picking up next door

and next, as you walk down the street

Coal fires,

back boilers,

another walk.

Another bus.

No one heading same way there.

Diesel banging, engine drum-beat.

No Walkman yet.

Songs in your head,

rhythms in the world,

no talk.

Town,

pace picks up.

In teenage step with other dark coated

hero rebels unfolding out of shadows.

They are here.

It is happening.

And we are there.

….TBC!

Thank you for reading and thank you Jason x