Day: March 31, 2020

Tick Tock Tuesday (31 March 2020) – The Undertones

I thought I’d create a new challenge. It is a challenge primarily for me, because I’m new to this platform, and because you don’t really know me yet, nor I you. As my name suggests, I am recovering from a stroke, and I like to push myself in all kinds of little ways… including getting to know the Wonderful World of WordPress. Although this is something I will be doing, I invite you, if this idea takes your fancy, to play along with me and share with me some of your own selections.

My plan is: each Tuesday, until I run dry, I shall post some piece of art with which I have some connection – which has helped to mould me, which makes me tick. Okay, a piece of art is a bit vague – it might be a piece of music, a movie, a book, a painting, or ???? – so my phrasiology is deliberate. It might be anything – I will play this post by ear, so I’m not sure what I’ll think of each week. And, I’ll keep posting on the theme weekly until I run out of ideas.

My rules? Well, I’m not big on rules! My choice will be something with which I feel a connection. That’ll be the important thing, just having some kind of fleeting affection for something probably won’t be enough, unless I’m using my choice as an example of something bigger.

It will be one choice per week – I’m aware that long posts can be quite onerous to read, and I’m in no hurry to complete this so if I have two ideas, I’ll probably hold the second until the next week.

In that same vein, I’ve created this block as a Reusable Block, which I intend repeating for every post on this theme. The block ends with a full-width separator, so if you want to skip ahead each week it doesn’t really matter.

I probably won’t post any lyrics, or any kind of analysis – if you like my choice, the information will be out there for you. But I will try to briefly explain why I feel a connection to my choice, just to try and enhance readers’ understanding of what makes me tick.

I will tag my posts TTT and I will go looking for other posts with that tag. If you’d like to join in, please do the same, or comment, or pingback to this post, and feel free to reproduce my graphic. Lastly, I look forward to reading about what makes you tick.

These last few weeks I have talked about my roots in Liverpool, and this week I wanted to jump across the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland and Derry. I’ve already mentioned my love of Irish music, and I wanted to spend the next couple of weeks introducing a few Irish acts, which you may or may not have heard of.

My featured band this week grew out of the ashes of punk, and were certainly a well-known fringe band when I was at university, with several chart hits. In my last year, my flatmate was unexpectedly gifted some money for his 21st birthday, and decided to buy himself an amp, a turntable and three LPs.

And, boy, did he plat those records LOUD! Which would have been fine, if it were not our final year.

Those three records? Well, there was Survival by Bob Marley, I could not argue at that album. Something by Jimmy Somerville – I’m not a massive fan, but he was bearable. And lastly, there was Cher O’Bowlies by The Undertones. The Undertones were a band I started off liking, grew to hate, and now like all over again. That’s a guy called Feargal Sharkey singing, who later had a couple of solo hits, including a big #1 hit in the UK.

So today I present a track from that album, complete with a memory of my final year at uni.