I love you dad. x

Colin Malcolm Cholerton
18 July 1934 – 17 July 2019

This one’s for the love of my life. We’ve been together for 13 years (i hope I got that right!). I’ve been chastised for many years for never writing her a song. Finally i have.

She doesn’t think so, but she’s fearless. And so talented. She created the artwork I chose for this Single – made of coloured wool, pencil and black marker calligraphy.

The words are from Jarod Kintz – a poet. I’m not much into poetry but he was pretty funny and worth a read.

jarodkintz.com

I was 13 or so.. when i saw ‘When Harry Met Sally’ a great romantic comedy with the great Billy Crystal, and the other love of my life Meg Ryan… before she went weird. The soundbite at the end is from the movie. Let’s grow old together too.

In the words of Mr. Kintz: ‘Love now, not later. Also, love later.’

The African sun is pretty unforgiving, even back in 1987 when we had an ozone layer. If I had to pedal my bike now, up the steady suburban climb to the corner shop on Broadway and Kensington I’d be a pool of sweat before I even dropped my first quarter (20 cent piece) into my favourite arcade game – Double Dragon. It’s a good thing we now have hover boards. I don’t know how we lasted this long without them.

I must have been 11 years old (maybe 12) and back then school finished up at about 2pm. Which meant that I had the better part of an afternoon to while away. Now I’m not 11 anymore, and I don’t know about you, but time sure moves a lot faster these days. It feels like dog years to me. 3 hours in adult time is about the same as 12 hours in kid time. Whatever the ratio, those hot African days I remember from my youth seemed endless.

When i think about my childhood, and it’s not often that I do, it occupies a dream like space in my mind, particularly those really early years. I wish I could access my memories like a hard drive – don’t you? I’d have a very usable and well categorised folder structure, probably by year and month. Maybe some of the folders would have a brief description as part of the name… like: ‘Strange Burning House’, or… ‘Post Box Thieves’, maybe… ‘San Lameer holidays’. These would be the standouts, the highlights. These are the ones that I’d remember well. But the ones I’d really like to recall would be labelled something like ‘1987 > December’ – just an arbitrary date. I’d be able to double-click my way through time. Wouldn’t it be amazing to get a slice of life like that, through your own childhood eyes? Through the days, weeks and months that were just ordinary, the ones that blended into each other, the ones you’ve forgotten – not appreciating just how amazing those times were. Somebody please invent that. Until then, I’ll have to rely on my fuzzy (and getting fuzzier) memories. 

Not to take anything away from memories. They ARE pretty awesome – don’t you think? The brain has this neat way of filling in the blanks for you. I can remember still frames (i think) from those pre-teen years, pov flashes, images of things and places. And the photos that I have (or had) from those days, probably taken by my mom and dad are like little beacons that connect those images and provide context. There was no such thing as a digital camera back then. We’d have to wait a week to get our 100 and 200 ISO rated film developed at the local pharmacy. That might sound like a massive inconvenience but it was actually the best thing in the world. The anticipation, delayed gratification – one of the best lessons in a 1980s world. When we did get our printed photos back, neatly stacked with the developed negatives beneath, they had that subtle tint that we probably weren’t even aware of at the time, and later emulated by convenient Instagram filters. It was the 80s tint – slightly brown, slightly orange – warm. And its that warm colour spectrum through which I seem to recall most of my 1980s childhood memories. Strange.

Where am I going with this? I never plan out these rambles… I guess where I’m going is that this song of mine, ARCADE LOVE… was written or at least imagined, before a word or a chord was recorded on paper or otherwise during one of these nostalgic fugue like trips down into the memory bank. It started as a feeling – now THAT is a great 80s lyric! But it did! It started as a collection of images – a mixture of real life memory, 80s movies, books, album covers, fashion and fantasy. One big montage collage. A stream of conscious-mess. Something like this:

hot sun – pedal bike – buddies riding ahead of me – marty mcfly – steep hill – quiet roads – big houses – cars – ditch bike – break coins for 20s – kali maa shakti de – double dragon – ghosts & goblins – bottled cokes – heeey yooouu guys! – fizzers – Greek cafe owner – getting my hair cut – wax on wax off – milo – syrup on toast – robotech – gummi bears – swimming pools – lone wolf – highway to the danger zone

I could go on, but you get the picture. I knew I wanted to write a song set in those memories – a mixture of real life and fantasy all with that warm 80s tint to tie it together. The result was ARCADE LOVE – a synth-loving, retro 80s sounding song about teenage love and the love of 80s arcade games. It’s about growing up in my home town, about that first teenage crush, a nostalgic story about childhood, endless summer days when we thought we’d be young forever. And the awesome thing about memories is that we will be young forever.