When that Faded Paint was Blue
Didn't Marcel Proust once suggest that "nostalgia" was:
…like an old dog chewing carpet slippers in a frenzy of self-loathing.
Well…actually, no…he didn't – and for good reason: it doesn't make any sense (or does it?).
Dogs and slippers notwithstanding, fustar.info has a low tolerance for the nostalgia industry and all its many products. Stand-up comedians who bound on stage roaring, "Hey Guys! Does anyone here remember Masters of the Universe?" (and the like), are held in particularly fierce contempt ("Yes I do remember it", I cry [to the hypothetical comedic straw-man], "And it was total shit!").
As Proust once again didn’t say (I wish he had):
Collective acts of remembering are not, in themselves, inherently funny.
He was a gas ticket that Proust.
This is not to say that all "nostalgising" (to coin a term?) is irritatingly facile. Warm and fuzzy feelings for the likes of such “nostalgia industry" stalwarts as Bagpuss and The Muppet Show are perfectly understandable. Both were inventive, entertaining and (if it’s not too cosily avuncular a word) charming shows – well worthy of celebration and remembrance.
Rampant nostalgia-mongering, however, often leads to a curious levelling of the quality playing field – with total arse-garbage like He-Man, Knight Rider (etc) recalled/promoted/repackaged equally enthusiastically as classic childhood fare. Though popular opinion might suggest otherwise, you can polish a turd (or at least make a lunchbox or 'wacky' novelty tie out of one).
Perhaps I'm being too curmudgeonly and sensitive. Perhaps pop-culture nostalgising has simply been handed a bad rap by the gormless talking heads of I Love 1984 (and its ilk). Still…I generally prefer my popular culture engagement served relatively straight – with genuine enthusiasm, as opposed to dry, self-aggrandising, wannabe-ironic 'humour' (For a fantastic example of how the 'kitschy' and the pulpy can be handled, look no further than the endlessly-eye-opening Groovy Age of Horror).
Anyway, this is essentially little but a long lead-in to justify (apologise for) a post about Bosco – a show that (perhaps) pushes the nostalgia buttons of the Irish 25-35 demographic more cheaply than any other (with the possible exception of Wanderly Wagon, which has been covered on this blog before). The reason the following YouTube clip is presented here (apart from a general affection for Lambert Family products) is principally due to how poignantly moving the featured song’s lyrics are. Check it out, and we'll talk more in a moment:
Talk about drenched in an atmosphere of regret, loss and melancholy. Let's break down the lyrics:
Have you ever seen a room full of old things?
Coats and lots of boxes full of old rings?
Wooden Rocking-Horses and broken down old clocks,
Strange mysterious parcels and great big rusty locks.
Where to start? The image of a room stuffed with "old things" and (bizarrely) "boxes full of old rings" is an undeniably powerful one. Visions of Tom Waits and his rusted, unloved, broken bicycles spring to mind:
As for the "strange mysterious parcels"…I'm spookily reminded of David Lynch and the hidden horror behind the surface of the everyday.
And now the chorus:
Once upon a time everything was new,
Once upon a time that faded paint was blue,
Once upon a time a key turned in that lock,
Once upon a time that clock went tock-tick-tock.
Ah what memories are conjured here! A time of virginal/childhood sweetness when the funk and dirt of life had not yet attached itself to us – when our "paint" was still vibrant. What doomed (relationship) pain is captured by the image of the key and the lock that will never again connect harmoniously. Are we sure Mr. Waits didn’t write this? If not, it should (surely) have graced his recent multi-CD opus Orphans. The “spooky farm" imagery of the final verse only confirms this:
I once saw a scarecrow wearing an old hat,
On his big straw head he wore a great old hat,
Standing in a field through day and night,
But everything he wore once was new and bright.
Repeat chorus and fade to –
"I like that song!"
"It’s lovely isn’t it?"
It sure is boys and girls.
January 12, 2007
9 responses to When that Faded Paint was Blue
Hey man. Great post. Been reading the blog for a while but don’t have anything much to add really. Just wanted to say keep it up. Actually had a tear in me eye during that bosco song!
Brendan,
Ta very much. Who’d have thought Tom Waits and the Bosco tunesmiths would have shared such a similar aesthetic?
Mind you, I once (jokingly) told my younger brother (he of the jam sandwiches) about a Waits version of “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic? and he spent the next few months searching for it to download. I suppose it is utterly believable that such a song might exist – as Tom’s stuff definitely has a nursery rhyme-ish quality to it.
A Waits children’s album would be a big hit I’m sure (though possibly inducing trauma in its young listeners).
Is that David Platt from Corrie on the right?
I had to check up who David Platt was as I only remember Martin Platt (the da) from my Coronation St watching days.
It’s not him though, unless he built a nationality-altering time machine. Neither is it David Platt of “last minute goal against Belgium in 1990″ fame.
I was messing. It’s the image of him…
Martin,
There was a time when I could have easily named every Bosco presenter (Impressed? I thought you would be).
Now, alas, I can only recall Marion and (the unforgettable) Phillip off the top of my head.
Wasn’t there a real “dacent skin” type Dub as well? I’m sure all this information is out there on the t’internet somewhere.
My first pubescent crush was for that lass in the dungarees I think. Unless there was another presenter who wore dungarees.
As for the song, well, it was the eighties after all.
Bif,
I think most Bosco presenters (male and female) wore dungarees. There was a huge warehouse of them out near RTE somewhere (dungarees that is, not presenters).
I too used to have the odd fluttering heart moment looking at the lass in question make things out of ‘marla’. There was something very seductive about a raven-haired, dungaree-clad woman massaging balls of plasticine.
I’m getting stirrings even thinking about it now…
Yes indeed. A time when Ireland was full of old things. Knackered, broken-down things. Things in various stages of decay and ruination.
It was full of old people too.