The Removal of Times Past?

Email mountain is down to c.1900.  Nothing pre-Cambrian exists in the inbox.  Some still to be marked as read, some subscriptions to be deleted.  Audible trying to tempt a return, bloody Emma Bridgewater making more gorgeous stuff, dammit, and ironically, the Stoic guy’s newsletter which I skim-read, nod along to and return to my merry non-Stoical ways.  Consistent at least.  During the mind-numbing, sometimes poignant, process of ridding the past, have been making best use of the three months of free Apple Music.  Revisiting the music of my early teens.  ‘Bread’, ‘James Taylor’, ‘Fleetwood Mac’; am a cliché of easy listening 1970’s.  I don’t care, it’s so relaxing.  Am convinced it lowers the blood pressure, completely, unlike social media which does the opposite.  When I was seventeen, I had a Saturday job in Woolworth’s in Paisley.  Was on a till booth next to the records department where I would spend my hard-earned cash, and it was cash in those days, on albums.  These would be taken home (swapped into a ‘Listen Records’ bag rather the naff Woolworth’s bag) and listened to intently, memorising the lyrics on the back of the album cover or the inner sleeve.  It was a totally focused, meditative pleasure - and the only way everybody found out that Kate Bush was singing the words, ‘Wuthering Heights’, as nobody could figure out what she was saying.  Buying records felt grown up.  That magical electrical-dust smell from Dansette record players.  Those sounds as the needle-arm lifted, clicking into place.  Anticipation of the spooky crackling noises before the music started, transporting you from homework and school uniforms to a future where anything was possible.   Like a girl who composed music from the age of twelve, and became the first ever female artist with a self-penned number one, at nineteen. 

Kate Bush “Wuthering Heights” The Kick Inside EMI Records 1978