Cocktails and Records

Sometimes I just don’t know how I am related to my parents. Of course, I am - I share my father’s cynical pessimism and my mother’s liberal hand-wringing - but when it comes to music, particularly the ‘classic rock canon’ which constitutes a fair chunk of my record collection, I do wonder.

The records below, now liberated from my parents apathy and in my possession, illustrate my concerns.

Example 1: With the Beatles


Amongst my father’s record collection are the first three Beatles albums. These records came into his possession when he stole them from an ex-girlfriend in 1964 as payback for scratching his Duane Eddy LP. They then lay dormant, unloved and unplayed, for almost 20 years until I announced aged 6 or 7 that I loved the Beatles and wanted, no needed, some of their music. They remain firm favourites.

Example 2: The White album

My mother has a mint pressing of The Beatle’s White album (and I mean mint - it’s pristine and perfectly preserved, including the set of four individual Beatles portraits which came with it). She received it for her birthday in early 1969, listened to the first side, decided it was rubbish, and never played it again. And side 1 is the good side with ‘Dear Prudence’ and ‘While my Guitar Gently Weeps’ on it. Thank God she didn’t start with side 4 and ‘Revolution no. 9′.

Example 3: Highway 61 Revisited

When I was about 14 I discovered a immaculately kept original copy of Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited in my parents record collection. ‘Who’s is this?’ I innocently enquired. My parents proceeded to have an argument about who didn’t own it:

‘It’s not mine. I can’t stand the man.’
‘Well, it’s certainly not mine. Do you think I would ever have bought something as bad as that?’
‘You must have because I would never listen to that talentless man.’
‘I tell you it’s not mine. I hate Bob Dylan more than you do.’
etc. etc. etc.

Meanwhile, I decide that ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ is quite possibly the best song ever.

Example 4: George Bean / The Rolling Stones

Again in my early teens, I was rifling through my parents collection when I found a 7″ titled ‘Will you be my lover tonight?’ by someone called George Bean. As a young music obesessive, I naturally ask my father who George Bean is.

‘Oh, some guy I used to know’ says Dad absent-mindedly.
‘Really!‘ I exclaim ‘Both sides are written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and it’s produced by Andrew Loog Oldham! You used to know someone who recorded songs written by the Rolling Stones??!!‘
‘Yes.‘ Dad looks positively bored. ‘I saw them play a few times, met them once or twice through George.‘
‘What were they like?’ I am practically beside myself now.
‘Crap’ says Dad ‘like that single.’

‘Will you be my lover tonight?’ George Bean (2.49MB)

‘Will you be my lover tonight?’ is the first single apparently written by the Jagger/Richards combo for someone other than the Stones and was released on Decca in 1964. Sounds like they’ve all been listening to a bit too much Phil Spector for their own good…