I have indulged myself with a trip down memory lane this week, it’s been a real joy searching out the songs that I listened to in my teens. Sadly they are not all available to stream as most of my collection was on vinyl, and have not all been added to Spotify. I have however, found a couple of gems on YouTube, so I will be able to share them with you.
I’m going to switch it up a little and go with a compilation of artists, rather than just one in the spotlight. There are quite a few that I would like to share with you, so this is going to be a two-part edition and will be continued next time.
Let’s begin with a band that I first heard at a Christian Holiday Bible Week that I attended with my family, back in the early 1980’s. Giantkiller, is their name and I remember loving their punk rock style, I bought their album ‘The Alternative’. My favourite tracks were ‘Voices’ here and ‘Living In The Cities’ here.
I was always keen to seek out new music and with no streaming available when I was younger, I had to go to a Christian bookstore and flip through their albums until one took my fancy. I had no way of hearing them beforehand, but I just used to take a gamble. One such record I purchased was ‘Chronology’ by David Meece. It was very different to my usual style of music, but I really liked a couple of the tracks. ‘We Are The Reason’ here was one, but my all-time favourite that I played over and over was ‘Everybody Needs A Little Help’ here.
Another wild purchase of mine was the album ‘On The Fritz’ by Steve Taylor. The two songs that I remember most were ‘This Disco (Used To Be A Cute Cathedral)’ here, and ‘On The Fritz’ here. I’ve tagged them both as videos, the quality isn’t great, but they are worth watching.
One other track of his that I simply couldn’t leave out was ‘Meltdown (At Madame Tussaud’s)’. When asked in an interview what his inspiration was for this song, he said he was visiting Madam Tussaud’s in London and wondered what it would be like if the heating was turned up and they all began to melt. He also explained the Christian message behind the song, which comes from the Bible verse in Mark chapter 8 verse 36, that says, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”. The rich and famous people as wax models all melted down the same drain, good and bad together, and none of them could take any of their riches and possessions with them. It’s a crazy song with a crazy video here, but it gives us all something to think about.
I think that’s enough for this time, I will save the rest for next week. I was so pleased to find one of my favourite songs from my later teens is now on Spotify, but you will have to wait till part two, to find out what it is…
The Church at Hiraeth 