Arts , Personal

The Call

Pip sent me on a trip into my past today. He posted the lyrics to The Call's Let the Day Begin.

That song became the backdrop to my first year at college. I first heard it at Pip and Martin's Very Stinkin' Late Show at Greenbelt in 1990. I'd just finished my A levels. School was behind me. London and life was ahead. "Let the day begin" resonated.

I became a big fan of The Call. I finally bought an import of their next album, Red Moon from a shop in an alley off Wardour Street. I still have the tall cardboard sleeve it came in. (Remember when American CDs came in double-height display sleeves?)

I loved the opening track, with Bono on backing vocals. "Did you see some great vision, did you finally break through? What's happened to you?" An old friend asked me the very same question; instead of staring at the ground I started looking toward the horizon.

I plundered The Call's back catalogue and discovered my all-time favourite of theirs Into the Woods (if only I could find that on CD!). The depth and weight of the words overwhelmed me, faith and doubt diving into the darkness in search of light.

I could go on. Talk about lead singer Michael Been's Light Sleeper soundtrack and its angry opener, World on Fire. Or his solo album, On the Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough.

The Call and Michael Been's music spoke the words inside my head so many times that reading just a snatch of the lyrics takes me right back there instantly.