Middle Aged, Middle of the Road Music

8 of 50

This is the second of the reader selected posts. Thanks to Stuart for picking N°53.

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Middle Aged Middle of the Road Playlist

My better half calls the music of my youth my ‘Middle Aged, Middle of the Road Music’. It’s the music that I listened to a lot, particularly during my teens and twenties, although in my defence some of it is both older and more recent than that and I like discovering more recent artists and songs that I like. I do however postulate that ‘they don’t make make music like that anymore!’ and continue to listen to these tracks a lot to this day.

My earliest recollection of music was when I was old enough to start school. The radio would be on in the mornings, I think as much as a timecheck for my Mum so that I didn’t miss the school bus. It would be Radio 2 and Ray Moore and I had to leave the house before Terry Wogan came on to make my bus. Songs like Hole in the Ground by Bernard Cribbins and Della and the Dealer by Hoyt Axton are songs that have stuck in my head to this day, as well as pretty much any track by Showaddywaddy.

On days when I was too ill to go to school (I was a pretty sickly kid so these happened quite regularly) I realised that my Mum kept the radio on all day. I suspect that this was more because television was still a bit of a novelty and didn’t rally start until early afternoon, with the mornings being programmes for schools or Open University lessons. Radio was AM, FM, LW or SW there was no DAB, Smart Speakers or any of the things we have now. There were only 4 national stations BBC Radio 1, 2, 3 or 4; a local BBC Radio station (Radio Solent) and an independent local station - Radio Victory.

As I got older, Radio 2 became a bit square for me and I became a Radio 1 listener. I’d spend my Sunday evenings trying to record the two hour national chart show onto cassette so that I could play it back over the week. I’d watch Top of the Pops when I could persuade my parents to let me monopolise the TV for half-an-hour.

Now I’m older still, I’d say that I have become my parents and am now more of a Radio 2 listener, although with the advent of digital radio or services like Radio.Garden the world is literally everyone’s oyster for listening to radio and music.

As I type I’m listening to my Middle Aged, Middle of the Road Music and for the purposes of this newsletter I’ve even put together a playlist of some the tracks that came to mind when I started to think about what should be on it. I’d intended that this be a short playlist of about 20 tracks but it ended up being over 30, and then I thought about it a bit more, and this is Fifty From Fifty, so I give you 50 tracks. If you’re on Apple Music you can listen to it directly here.

If not here’s the playlist:

1. You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon

2. Moon Over Bourbon Street - Sting

3. In the Air Tonight - Phil Collins

4. Money For Nothing - Dire Straits

5. Walk Of Life - Dire Straits

6. Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel

7. Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams

8. Jennifer She Said - Lloyd Cole & The Commotions

9. Russians - Sting

10. Invisible Touch - Genesis

11. Real Gone Kid - Deacon Blue

12. Desire - U2

13. The King of Rock 'N' Roll - Prefab Sprout

14. Paradise City - Guns N' Roses

15. Cheek To Cheek - Fred Astaire

16. Manic Monday - The Bangles

17. The Hole In the Ground - Bernard Cribbins

18. Uptown Girl - Billy Joel

19. Born In the U.S.A. - Bruce Springsteen

20. The Road to Hell (Part 2) - Chris Rea

21. Electric Dreams - Phil Oakley & Giorgio Moroder

22. Big Yellow Taxi - Counting Crows

23. Queen of the New Year - Deacon Blue

24. Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton

25. Thorn in My Side - Eurythmics

26. Come On Eileen - Dexys Midnight Runners

27. Jack & Diane - John Cougar Mellencamp

28. Daydream Believer - The Monkees

29. (Is This the Way To) Amarillo - Tony Christie

30. Della and the Dealer - Hoyt Axton

31. East Bound and Down - Jerry Reed

32. Deeper Water - Paul Kelly

33. Under the Moon of Love - Showaddywaddy

34 Waterfront - Simple Minds

35 The Lion Sleeps Tonight - Tight Fit

36 Shoot to Thrill - AC/DC

37 Sharp Dressed Man - ZZ Top

38 One Week - Barenaked Ladies

39 Little Red Corvette - Prince

40 Convoy - C.W. McCall

41 Run to the Hills - Iron Maiden

42 Need You Tonight - INXS

43 Radio Ga Ga - Queen

44 The Way It Is - Bruce Hornsby & The Range

45 Africa - Toto

46 Every Breath You Take - The Police

47 Into the Great Wide Open - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

48 Music to Watch Girls By - Andy Williams

49 We Have All the Time in the World - Louis Armstrong

50 End of the Line - The Traveling Wilburys

I suspect with very little effort I could go on and on and on, but for brevity and for fear of overloading your emails I won’t. In fact since I put together the initial 50 tracklist I’ve been listening to it a lot. I’ve had it on in the car and pretty much anytime I’ve been listening to music, I’ve been listening to this playlist. Each time I’ve thought of something else that should be on there, one track has triggered a memory of another or the thought that this playlist won’t be complete without. . . . . . . .

I think perhaps once this post goes live I might keep adding to the playlist and see where is goes, so if you’re not reading this newsletter on or shortly after the day it goes out, don’t be surprised if the playlist has grown somewhat.

I also wonder if this can be called middle aged music anymore? Afterall I doubt that I’ll make 100+ years of age so this is becoming what exactly for a playlist? The Saga Tracks? Feel free to drop me a comment with what you think it should perhaps be called now.

Thanks for reading.