Radio Heaven

My celestial playlist - a love story of the 80s

Together in Electric Dreams

We all have those songs - the ones that stop us in our tracks. The ones where we think the Universe, or someone that has left a hole in our lives, is trying to send us a message. The ones that make us need to pull over whilst driving to have a real, proper, snuffly cry. It’s not just the songs that were played at a funeral, in fact in some ways it’s not those at all, but more the extraordinary power of music to connect us with a place in time, a person, a memory, a whole lifetime.

That song for me is ‘Together in Electric Dreams’ by Phil Oakey and Girgio Moroder.

Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

It didn’t really get that much airplay for years, but since it was ‘John Lewisified’ (verb), it has become far more prevalent. Prior to this it came on the radio so rarely it would make me physically shake. Now its ubiquity brings me a knowing smile.

This song, for me, is the 80s, and this song is me and Brian - I’m sure much to his chagrin. It is the anthem for the emergent pre-brat pack period of electro-romantic-sci-fi comedies like Electric Dreams, Ghostbusters, Mannequin and Weird Science. I can picture Brian as I type the line (from Weird Science) that would make him hold his sides, whilst cackling his inimitable cackle: ‘anyone for a nice greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray’? You really need to watch the film to have that in context!

This is the genre for which ‘Stranger Things’ was made.

My celestial playlist

My brother was a total pain in the arse ‘B-side’ muso. Alphabetising the LPs, scorning chart hits and all the usual stuff (just like my husband). I think it’s a boy thing. Well that was the ‘image’ he portrayed anyway…

What actually existed secretly alongside this was his love for a good pop song, us literally physically fighting over the tape player to put our cassettes in when the Top 40 played on a Sunday on Radio 1, so we could illegally record the parts of songs the DJs didn’t talk over. Similarly with Top of the Pops and Betamax videos. Lying side by side on the carpet ‘My turn’ [STOP] [EJECT]. ‘Noooo this is my song - I want this one’ [PUSH BACK IN] [RECORD]. Punch in the arm. [STOP] [EJECT]. Tape spewed out with the reel in pieces. Bastard.

I’ll never forget one of the times we went to the Clapham Grand together with our mates when we were in our twenties - our unbridled and knowing joy as we walked in to the sound of Irene Cara’s Flashdance. What a feeling indeed.

I could build a perfect 80s playlist.

When I wrote my piece ‘Wires’ recently, I talked about how lyrics can paint the story of your life. How songs narrate experiences, how we fall into their words as we experience our own fears and heartache, or indeed joy and celebrations. My playlist is more about the time in our lives, and the accompanying memories.

Brian’s actual funeral song was ‘Across the Universe’ by the Beatles. I had a very spooky moment with that one when I had just finished writing Breaking Waves:

I read through this draft for the final time, sitting in the garden at nearly midnight with a glass of red wine and a cup of tea, feeling the hint of summer evenings to come. I throw the pages into the firepit and message my best friends and the baps to say, ‘it is done’.

Across the Universe by The Beatles comes on – it was the song played at the end of Brian’s funeral. ‘Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns, it calls me on and on across the universe’.

There is magic in the air.

(I have a digital copy, don’t panic).

I love that song, and we chose it carefully, but it’s not one that is a lifelong association with him, it’s just a bloody brilliant song. Brian is parties at the house we lived in together as young adults where we would shriek the words to ‘Deep’ by East 17 along with the hand movements, he is ‘Show Me Heaven’ by Maria McKee (he did love a female vocalist). He is ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’, ‘Waiting for a Star to Fall’, ‘Echo Beach’ and ‘The Horse With No Name’.

He is The Jam and all of their songs but Going Underground stands out. This is the picture I see every time I hear The Jam - you can practically see them singing it.

Three of their lovely group died so young.

One of my closest friends calls it her ‘celestial DJ’ when she hears the song come on that cracks her heart. The song that forever twins her and her best friend who devastatingly lost her battle with cancer. Titanium. Sadly I never met her gorgeous friend, but God if that song isn’t a war cry against cancer, I don’t know what is.

Yep, I have a celestial DJ, and my own celestial playlist.

Electric Dreams squeezes my heart every time I hear it played. That was OUR time. The 80s. And yes it’s a love story, but sibling love is perhaps the best love story of all - just ask Fleabag.

I see you everyday
I don't have to try
I just close my eyes

We'll always be together
However far it seems
We'll always be together
Together in electric dreams

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Won’t you stay another day

Where Electric Dreams squeezes my heart, one other song rips it right open - . It is so beautiful, but I’m kind of glad it only gets played around Christmas. It knocks me off my feet every time. It’s not just that we used to ‘faux’ LOVE East 17 (actually really loving East 17) and sing this song at the top of our voices at Christmas, it’s not even just the lyrics, which are heart stopping for me in the context, it’s also the discovery that Tony Mortimer wrote it for his brother who died. I wonder if I will hear it today, on Brian’s birthday.

This song really is a true sibling love story.

Baby if you've got to go away
Don't think I could take the pain
Won't you stay another day?
Oh don't leave me alone like this
Don't you say it's the final kiss
Won't you stay another day?

Don't you know we've come too far now
Just to go and try to throw it all away
Thought I heard you say you love me
That your love was gonna be here to stay
I've only just begun to know you
All I can say is won't you stay just one more day?

Photo by Kacper Szczechla on Unsplash

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What’s on your celestial playlist?

I’d love to hear.

Love & lemons 💕🍋

Em xx