It’s been a strange few days.
First, there was this (see images below). I didn’t want to make a song and dance of it. The last thing I ever expected or ever anticipated was an actual response. Truly, I believed those days were long gone. That is why I finished my little reply by saying ‘Answer withheld’ because I honestly didn’t think he’d respond. He didn’t have to and to be honest I thought perhaps a few local Glaswegians might have responded instead – but I am ssooooooooo out of the fan loop these days and I barely interact.
I was both stunned and quite thankful for the response. I knew of Rouken Glen Park but it wasn’t a park in the fore of my mind. Pollok Park is somewhere I have been to before and…Oban is on the list but that’s for a future time.
A good friend had been saying to me that I needed to get out of the house, get out of my own headspace and get out into nature. After we had spoken I kept thinking about where I should go. I wanted somewhere I hadn’t been to before. Somewhere that was easily accessible via public transport and then…Jim posted and I thought “nothing ventured.” If I remain persona non grata I’ve lost nothing anyway.
So yesterday I went to Rouken Glen Park with the OH. I kept wondering if it was something I should have done alone. I don’t know. By the by, we went together. Getting to Rouken Glen took a train to Queen Street, then a connecting train leaving from Glasgow Central to Whitecraigs. I didn’t think we were going to make the first connecting train but as we made our way down Gordon Street I realised we had just enough time to make the next train that was leaving in a few minutes. We rushed into the entrance of the station, checked the timetable displayed above, saw that the Neilston train was leaving from platform 9, went through the barriers – shit! Wrong barriers! No access to platform 9. Did it again (ie: new set of wrong barriers)! Finally got to platform 9 and got on the train – except it wasn’t the Neilston train. That train was further down platform 9. Bloody hell! It had gone and we’d missed it. I even looked further down the platform and I couldn’t see a train! So, the adventure was off to a great start. Never mind. Nothing lost as I hadn’t expected us to get to Central in time for this train anyway.
We got to Whitecraigs just before 1pm. On our arrival you could see that, yes – this was one of the ‘money-ed’ areas of greater Glasgow. Big houses, even bigger Christmas decorations. The plan was to have a wander around the park, then head back to the station and head to Patterton and go to the Aldi that was within walking distance nearby. This is all very domestic, I know, but the reason for the Aldi stop is because the decaf coffee I drink and like best is Aldi’s own. It’s been really hard to get lately. The High Street store no longer stocks it and so I thought maybe this Newton Mearns Aldi would have stock.
Again, I digress.
Kudos to Jim for recommending Rouken Glen Park. I didn’t see a lot of it this time – it was titty-freezing cold and I was a bit unsure on my feet so I just stuck to the main path, really, and did a loop of the pond area and checked out the waterfall. The OH saw a treecreeper climbing up the trunk of one of the trees. I wasn’t so lucky as to spot it. I think I may have seen a fieldfare…possibly…but it was most likely just a female blackbird – but it seemed just a bit bigger than the usual sized blackbird and that’s why I wondered whether it was a fieldfare or some other kind of thrush.
After the wander about we headed back to Whitecraigs to get the train to Patterton. We did more walking getting to and from the Aldi than we did at Rouken Glen I think – it felt that way anyway. It was a wasted journey resulting in no coffee goddamnit! We should have just spent longer at Rouken Glen. Hindsight and all that.
There was a little exchange during the train journey back to Central which had me in absolute stitches for a few minutes. The train guard came by on ticket inspection. Usually I would hear the guard approaching and have my phone out with my ticket ready but this guy was whisper-quiet and just appeared from nowhere. So the “tickets please” announcement came with a mild jolt. As I’m getting my phone out of my bag and waking the phone up I said to him “You snuck up on us.” And he replied and I kind of had this delayed response thing, almost like I wasn’t really sure if what he said was what I heard right. After he’d finished checking our tickets and walked off I said to the OH “I don’t know if I heard it right but I’m sure he said ‘like creepy Jesus’ when I said to him that he snuck up on us.” And I just lost it. I couldn’t stop laughing. I’d not heard it before and I thought he was being self-deprecating because he had a beard – like I was thinking he must think he gets mistaken for Jesus or something. Honestly, I don’t really know what I was thinking but I was in hysterics. I posted about the exchange on Facebook and the first response I saw was from Frank Gallagher telling me “it’s a Scottish thing.” Safe to say I’d never heard it before and so I was highly amused.
To undo all the good that getting out for a walk had done me, during the dash back to Queen Street from Central, I decided to pop into Tantrum Doughnuts, of course!
Once home, I looked through the photos I had taken on my phone. I didn’t take too many and took a bit of footage of the waterfall. There was a special display wall for people who are so inclined to place a padlock. It had seemingly been a thing people were doing by the waterfall which had been discouraged by East Renfrewshire Council who had placed this wall there for a dedicated area for the placement of padlocks away from the waterfall guard itself. I had taken some close-up photos of some of the padlocks and hadn’t looked at them in great detail while we were there (would have needed to put my glasses on, etc, to have been able to read them). The first few photos I’d taken contained padlocks with the romantic twist of a young couple’s name. Some were obviously more objects of memorial devotion. So, I share these with a morbid sense of humour attached. The “Sasha TIMPSON” one in particular made me lose it. I cracked up. I was thinking why wouldn’t you choose the other side of the lock? Or get the Timpson logo filed off or something. The “Wife, Mum, Gran” one just made me think of Wayne Rooney. I’m sure there was a message on the other side of the padlock but just being able to see the words “Wife, Mum, Gran” just made me lose it all over again.
The day tired me out. I slept in fits and starts. Dreams were interesting but not to the degree where anything lingered in the memory. The alarm woke me out of deeper sleep at 7.15am and the snooze button was pressed several times. I finally ambled out of bed just before 8am with the thought of this ‘surprise’ on the Zoe Ball Breakfast show in the forefront of my mind.
I tuned in just before 9am thinking that I may have missed it but I hadn’t. The big reveal was happening imminently. I awaited with a mix of subdued excitement with an undercurrent of dread. I know! I hate feeling this way too! Trust me, I do. But I can’t lie. I won’t blow smoke up the band’s arse and I won’t pretend. I’m not going to fake shit. I have to be honest, even if it hurts. By god have things hurt over these past 12 months!
So, the world premiere of ‘Your Name in Lights’ began. Even hearing the title I thought….I’m not sure! I don’t know what it is about the title that gives me the ick but it just does. Maybe because it sounds a little, dare I say, cliched? A bit too… consumerist? I don’t know. Anyway, name aside, I kept listening. I have to state here I have still only heard it this one time. I wasn’t listening through headphones. I was listening on my iPad Mini in the livingroom with the OH listening too.
I really wanted to like it. But…to me it sounded a bit…throwaway and lacking in passion. I didn’t feel anything emotive. I didn’t find anything drawing me in with the lyrics. The music sounded too weak. There was no guts to it. There was nothing anthemic to it. Yes, I know it was electronic/synth driven but they’ve done that music many, MANY times in the past and given it …. Chutzpah! There’s been a drive, a pulse, an action, a centrepiece – SOMETHING! Something that grips you. Something that gets the hackles up. Something that strikes positively.
I hate feeling like this! I feel like they are on the slide again.
As I’ve been working on the book and going over the latter material – perhaps it’s indicative of the time, back to my most ardent fan days but when I revisit Big Music and Walk Between Worlds, there is a lot I gain from them. Not everything is great. There is the odd song that isn’t so good, but on the whole I really enjoy those two albums. But when it came to Direction of the Heart, it wasn’t there so much. I mean, ‘First You Jump’ hit me like a wave and made me burst into tears – in a good way, in an uplifting and life-affirming way. I really felt like Jim was talking to me in that song. And it felt like that from the very first listen. And yes, not all Simple Minds songs hit me on the first listen, I’m aware of that.
The last thing I wanted to do was say “I don’t like it” and not give any valid or plausible reason as to why. It’s easy to dismiss something by just saying ‘meh’ or ‘nah’ and not elaborate further, or to simply imply something is “shit.” I didn’t want to do that. Am I keen to listen to the song again? Not especially. I’m not sure how I can listen to it now without these prejudices that I’ve already opined sullying it. I will try though.
Oh, it just feels like I am in such a no-man’s-land with this band that I have loved fervently for the past decade. To have had a response from Jim like I did the other day felt lovely in a way I didn’t expect. I feel like I haven’t really done much to curry favour lately. I thought all of that side of the ‘good’ was long gone.
My feelings about this new song don’t come from a bitter place. Genuinely! I just…I just don’t think I’m feeling it any more and that upsets me. I feel really sad about that. I’m on the verge of tears here, because I never thought I would get to this point. And that little thing at the top of the post – that word back from Jim, albeit very straightforward and nothing else to it, felt like a glimmer of hope. Something a little bit tangible where so much had felt intangible for so long now.
The song has thrown it back into the shadows again.
I’m just trying to understand it all as best I can. Maybe I never will.
P.S. A wee reminder that Everything is Possible airs on BBC Scotland tonight at 10pm GMT. I might sit through again, although these days 10pm is past my bedtime (unless there’s a gig on).
