mystery track
The mystery song I played on my Wired podcast was in fact by David Bowie. ‘Letter To Hermione’ was on his 1969 album Space Oddity. A few people got it right but no postcard has arrived at the Nutmeg of Consolation (I’m relieved to say) so no jaffa cakes for you!
Backstage at Live Aid a few minutes before we went onstage, Bowie jokingly asked what we should play if we got an encore? The band had only learned four songs and anyway with the tight timing encores were out of the question. I quipped that he should whip out an acoustic and play ‘Letter To Hermione.’ “Hmm, that might be a bit of a floor-clearer”, he replied.
The tune is notable because in my opinion it’s the only song Bowie ever recorded in which he allows himself to be truly vulnerable. These lyrics are intimate and conversational, whereas his lyrical trademark involves layers of idiom, street-speak and rock’n'roll/drug imagery.
He reputedly wrote it for Hermione Farthingale, pictured above. But to me, and probably to thousands of his teenage fans at the time, this song was about MY first girlfriend that dumped me. (Ricky Gervais loves this song and included it in his Desert Island Disks, I wonder if he had the same experience?)
Her name was Becky. We met on a sailing trip on the Norfolk Broads aged about 14. She had long raven-dark hair and a voluptuous figure, and I was completely besotted with her. She lived in a posh part of North London. I remember making the trip to Belsize Park tube station dozens of times because they took your ticket at the top of the elevator so I used to skip out of paying by sneaking up the emergency stairs to the street. This was a long sooty spiral staircase–we’re talking something like 484 steps, it being one of the deepest tube stations in London. One time I got all the way to the top step only to find myself face to face with the grinning ticket collector. Terrified, I started to trot pointlessly back down those 484 steps with his booming laughter echoing after me.
Frankly, Becky was out of my class. I showed up at her house one time and her big sister answered the door. As I stood there in the pouring rain she told me that Becky didn’t want to see me and had gotten back together with her previous boyfriend who I knew was 17 and good-looking.
“They say your life is going very well
They say you sparkle like a different girl
But something tells me that you hide
When all the world is warm and tired
You cry a little in the dark
Well so do I….
He makes you laugh
He brings you out in style
He treats you well
And makes you up real fine
And when he’s strong
He’s strong for you
And when you kiss
It’s something new
But did you ever call my name
Just by mistake?”
[Ha! Just found this pic of the emergency stairs at Belsize Park. Apparently it was used as a bomb shelter in WW2.]
Amazing how fate directs you, and how the cards fall.
Having had similar events, as did countless others, I would not change my life for the world as it is now. (Unless Shania Twain called round to ask me to elope)!
As for Bowie, some artists sing from the heart, it is only later in his career that his songs started getting a bit more personal.
Talking of getting emotional, any word on the tracklistings for the remasters?
The song that does the same thing for me is Elvis Costello’s ‘I Want You’. Absolutely THE worst song to play after a break up (assuming you’re the one that got dumped).
I never would have guessed that was David Bowie (nope, no packet of
biscuits for me either)…what a sad, beautiful song. Very vulnerable…
I don’t think I could ever be brave enough to pour my heart out like that.
Actually, I think I might have that song on a cassette around here
somewhere, but it’s been misplaced for about 15 years. Right-o ,
Spellcheck, ‘cassette’ has TWO s’s, ha ha.
“if it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all…” my first “real”
boyfriend, Brian Davis (he’s since changed his name, I think), was a real
prize: he’d get kicked out of his rooming house, come to my Mom and I’s
apartment, sleep on the couch for a few hours, then eat most of our food.
I was maybe 17 at the time, and he was model-handsome. His parting gift
to me was mononeucleosis! Ah well–he’d forgotten a rather nice white
jacket, which just had ripped pockets, in our closet, so I sewed the ripped
seams {sewing being one of my many talents/hobbies}, and when he
phoned to ask whether he’d left his jacket, I said NO. :p I still have the jacket,
btw. It’s not off-white, it’s snow-white. Possibly a golfing jacket…
ouch!
I thought your ‘Late Night With Dolby’ DJ voice on the Wired Podcast was very good.
What with your ‘The Toadlickers’ track and your quiet delivery I could have been listening to ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris plays Country program on Radio 2!!
With a competition as well as an interesting selection of music you could have yet another career open to you?
Ever tempted to look up Becky on Friends Reunited — just to find out what happened to her?
(I wonder if she rued the day she passed you up after you got rich and famous. Oh well, her tough luck!)
[That lyric was from "Born Under a Bad Sign", btw.] Please excuse my
temporary lack of inhibition, everyone; I was, and am, a little freaked-
out by the fact that North Korea is now a nuclear power. Okay, a LOT
freaked-out. So I was thinking, ‘it’s the end of the world as we know it’
[REM], so…let’s all just pretend I was drunk, shall we?!
This first love wasn’t Europa was it?
I don’t know why but I always loved this track from the early days of discovering Bowie in the early eighties and now re-discovering it with my guitar and the help of internet chord sites. It’s really easy to play and sing on the guitar and is an absolutely classic tune. Just the do-do-do-do’s at the beginning and end of the track are enough to win a songwriting grammy in my book. And the end chord, described as Fdim5/E or 033200 – the chord everyone plays when they try to ape the Spanish flammenco style – is a great chord to end song with, leaves you thinking that you missed something, something’s not quite right or that you’ve got to listen to it again.
Anyway, I enjoyed reading that post – great story from Live Aid. Of course, I loved the keyboards on Heroes – everybody did. Great digging out the picture of David with the alleged Hermoine and your cool story about your Belsize Pk girl!