17-07-2009

I've long been an admirer of the American ukulele crooner Pasty Monteleone.  The one thing I really envy about him is the sheer scale of his repertoire: the man knows hundreds of songs.  The songs he knows most about are those from what is commonly referred to as The Great American Songbook - early 20th century jazz, Tin Pan Alley and depression era stuff.  I was so in awe of him that I started learning some of those songs for myself.  It was slow going, and didn't come naturally, but I'd love to have such an extensive canon to call on. 

That's when I realised I did.  Patsy has a head start, because he's been familiar with those Great American Songbook songs all his life.  They're intertwined with his experience; they were already part of the soundtrack to his life. Of course he's familiar with their conventions, their structures and their refrains.  How could I do that when my salad days were spent in the UK of the 1980s?

That was my moment of realisation. If I am to develop a repertoire anywhere near the size of Patsy's, I have to draw on my own exprience. I'm an 80's child, and, like it or loathe it (and I do both, in equal measure), I bloody know it. Inside out.

Even in the Re-entrants, I've noticed songs from the 80s come together so much more easily and quickly than songs from other eras.  So that's what I'm going to do:

I'm going to learn the 80s of the UK.

All of it.

Hundreds of 80's tunes, from glorious to gloriously awful.  I'm going to slowly and gradually build my way to the point where anyone could mention any 80s song and I'll be able to play it.

This isn't a commercial project. This is my personal Everest.

I'm off to buy a 'CHOOSE LIFE' T-shirt.

I x