What Jeremy doesn’t know is….
Oh, I’ve not done one of these for a while. It just so happened to coincide with my latest “digital music” purchase in a way that simply hasn’t happened before. Did any of you watch that “Unforgettable Jeremy Beadle” thing that was on ITV tonight? No? Anyone find it odd that the obituary programme was shown at roughly the same time slot as many of his programmes? No again? Well, I’m going to continue anyway.
Chris was round tonight, so a night of vegetation in front of the telly was in order. The afore mentioned programme sparked enough interest in the room to warrant its watching. On the other hand (ho ho), there wasn’t much else on.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable look back at the man’s life, with clips from shows I didn’t even think existed anymore. The end theme, however, made me shout of with amazement.
Let me take you back to 1992, 1993ish. My record collection was still at a minimal level. Few singles, fewer albums. This was boosted by an old relative clearing out her cupboards, and a stack of mainly uninteresting LPs were given to me. Out of all of the albums played, two tracks stood out. One of them featured on a scratchy old Telstar compilation album named “More Green Velvet”, and was entitled “The Lonesome Boatman” by The Fureys + Davey Arthur. It was a short, flutey, instrumental with a great guitar track and very 80s sounding seagull samples.
Now, thanks to the tinternet, I was able to find many different recordings of this, but not the one featured on the More Green Velvet album. The online stores only stocked the same CDs which had a different version. Even Spotify didn’t have it. Thankfully, I managed to find a version of it on youtube. It was longer than my vinyl version, though it would appear that the disc it came from was long out of print, and therefore went for an absolute fortune on ebay. Sigh. This was the only time I’d heard it coming from a source other than my own record collection.
Years pass, and on Friday, I’m awoken with the tune in my head, and the realisation I’d not tried any of the digital download sites. Within minutes, I was 69p lighter, and downloading “The Lonesome Boatman” My long search was over! In fact, I tweeted about it…
Finally got a digital version of “The Lonesome Boatman” by The Fureys for 69p… had it on vinyl, given to me by a long dead relative. 11:45 AM Aug 13th via web
All was not right, however, when I played it through headphones for the first time…
Ugh. Disregard my earlier “Lonesome Boatman” tweet. Awful analogue tape damage on this version all the way through. 69p wasted. Grrrrr. 1:48 AM Aug 14th via web
If you’re listening through speakers, it’s not too bad, but on headphones, the right channel is terrible! This version is taken from a “greatest hits”, so I’m hoping for a better version out there somewhere.
Er, anyway, back to the telly theme link…. two days after purchasing it, the very same version was used as the closing credits for the Jeremy Beadle thing. I find it really a bit spooky and coincidental that I would buy this tune almost immediately after waking up thinking about it, and two days later, for the first time in ~18 years, actually hear it broadcast on TV. It’s just weird, and a little too concidental.
Oh, and, to end this posting with yet another “death” announcement, according to the UKGameshows mailing list, Jack Parnell, one of the two composers of the original “Family Fortunes” theme (Bob Monkhouse / Max Bygraves era), has died. The other composer, Dave Lindup, died in 1992. Lindup’s son, Mark, is the keyboard player from Level 42.
