Music you loved as a Child.

[A Passing Turk Slipper]

What did you love to listen to as a child? What is your earliest memory of listening to music and enjoying it? Not in a first record you bought way but more like when you were a small child and you had favourite songs that you would get your parents to play from their music collection. I remember when I was a really small child, the only songs I knew and could sing along to were by the Beatles. I was listening to 'You Won't See Me' by the Beatles a couple of days ago it totally reminded me of my old dining room where the record player used to be. I remember 'Twist and Shout' being one of my favourites and always annoying my dad into playing it. I remember drawing moustaches on them on the back cover of 'Help!' and staring for ages at the Sgt Pepper cover. So what did you listen to as a child?

[mangoliver]

Karma Chameleon - by Culture Club, was the first song I can remember hearing on the radio and loving.

That Roxette song form the Pretty Woman soundtrack I also loved that for some reason or other. Big, soppy, pretty ballad. Roxette then became the first album I ever bought.

[9]

the theme tune to the pink panther cartoon.

[GoochDogHigh5s]

The Beatles and Lonnie Donegan
AHEM

[ccab]

i loveda that joe dolce songa HEY! when i wassa bouta sixa (& talked like this for at least a year afterwards)

whassa a matter you HEY!
why you looka so sad?
itsa not so bad
itsa nica place
ah shaddapa you face!

[Gazeuse]

Aparrently I was very fond of 'Little Children' by Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, but the one I really remember is 'Excerpt From A Teenage Opera' more commonly known as 'Grocer Jack' by Keith West.

[GoochDogHigh5s]

Aparrently I was very fond of 'Little Children' by Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, but the one I really remember is 'Excerpt From A Teenage Opera' more commonly known as 'Grocer Jack' by Keith West.

What happened to the rest of the opera?
Poor old Keith missed the boat there.One year before the overbloated Tommy

[The Region Legion]

Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe - Order Of The Universe & Let's Pretend
Bill Bruford's Earthworks - Stromboli Kicks
Moody Blues (any of theirs really)

and apparently I was a big fan of Talking Heads too.


So basically I've always had great taste.

[Lt Plonker]

but the one I really remember is 'Excerpt From A Teenage Opera' more commonly known as 'Grocer Jack' by Keith West.

That's a great song. I've got it in my playlist. I have vivid memroies of this too, as my dad used to play it when he was ironing.

The only three records I had when I was a a sprog, were Jive Bunnny, the Tennage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie soundtrack and Timmy Mallet's Album, which you can buy from his website, funnily enough.

[NaN]

Bruce Springsteen... it was only with age that i realised that songs i so happily danced to were in fact as depressing as fuck....

i seem to remember also liking Don Henley, Richard Marx and Brian Adams.... but i think thats mostly due to the forseful influence of my AOR parents

[Schlippy]

The first words I spoke were the chorus of Boney M's "Brown Girl in the Ring".

First record I can remember is Hot Chocolate's "No Doubt About It". It was the first record that was "mine" - my elder siblings being wankers, I wasn't allowed to touch any grown-up records as a kid. I think my parents got me this just to shut me up, but I played the absolute fuck out of it, to the point where they got me my own little piss-pot Tomy record player to play it on out of earshot.

It all went downhill from there.

Had forgotton about this completely until reading this thread, suddenly everything is falling into place.

[5 Knuckle Shuffle]

Magic by Pilot was a favourite of mine as a kid. I also remember liking anything by The Beatles, Barry White, The Tavares and The Stylistics,with a little Rolling Stones thrown if my Dad was allowed to use the record player.

[Partridge's Love Child]

Pure class.  Wouldn't it be great if he got Parkinsons.

Hehehehehe.

[Jemble Fred]

Aside from the All Aboard LP, which included tracks like My Boomerang Won't Come Back, Two Little Boys, Morning Town Ride, My Brother, Right Said Fred, Teddy Bear's Picnic, Nelly The Elephant etc Country music and Buddy Holly would have been in my atmosphere until my eldest brother became a DJ. Apparently I had a special dance to He's My Japanese Boy and it only took the first chord of Thriller to send me screaming out of the room.

Later on, sharing with my other brother, there was a lot of Wet Wet Wet to listen to. So I'd say 'Popped In, Souled Out' by them is the most important record from my childhood. No shame in that.

[James]

I used to love West End Girls by Pet Shop Boys when I was a nipper.  I am told I always used to perk up whenevet it came on the car tape player.  Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Relax, also.  When I thought it was an innocent song about Chewits, or something.

[Partridge's Love Child]

West End Girls is a fine record and no mistake.  You tend to forget these days, because we're used to it, but when that came out it sounded like nothing else around.  Heh, to think that Relax was banned from the wireless, and now Radio 1 is full of rapper types talking about their 'hos and their bang bang darkie ways.

[Rubbish Monkey]

Aside from the All Aboard LP, which included tracks like My Boomerang Won't Come Back, Two Little Boys, Morning Town Ride, My Brother, Right Said Fred, Teddy Bear's Picnic, Nelly The Elephant etc

weeeeee! i loved that!

War of the Worlds was one of mine and the Flash Gordon soundtrack - I remember running around the living room pretending I was in the film. Oh I also remember my attempts to breakdance in the same living room to the Breakdance the Movie soundtrack. As my Dad was a Pink Floyd fan I listened to hours of that too. Animals being my favourite. I was especially fascinated with the cover.

[Ambient Sheep]

Courtesy of my much older brother in the next room, I was brought up from the age of six or seven on a diet of the two albums Simon & Garfunkel - The Sounds of Silence and King Crimson - In The Court of the Crimson King.  Which probably explains a lot - how many kids do YOU know who have the lyrics of "A Most Peculiar Man" and "21st Century Schizoid Man" off pat?!

Before that I remember being very fond of the tune Yellow Submarine as a small child, apparently when I was three we went to a holiday camp on the Isle of Wight and it was played constantly (which nowadays gives me visions of a Prisoner-esque PA system churning it out!).

I'd also second 9's mention of the Pink Panther cartoon theme tune.

When I was about nine my favourite record was Sparks - This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both of Us.  I still love it.  Other notable memories are (ahem) Terry Jacks - Seasons in the Sun (I read in passing the other day that this was a translation of a Jacques Brel song, is that really true?!) and Sweet - Blockbuster.  Plus the usual Slade, Mud & Wizzard stuff - I remember the *first* Christmas that Slade did their thang.  Isn't that weird, to think of a time when "Merry Christmas Everybody" didn't exist?

I didn't get into actually buying records until I was about 13 though, as my parents are musically old-fashioned and they didn't encourage that sort of thing.  Didn't prevent it either, but I never went near record shops until I did so on my own initiative.

West End Girls is indeed a fine record, but I was, um, in my 20s by the time it came out...

[Nearly Annually]

Lily The Pink by The Scaffold. Ed "Stewpot" Stewart played it on Radio1 for my third birthday.

Y Viva Espana by Sylvia Vrethammar. Well, my mummy made me dance along with it when it came on, but I'm not convinced I actually enjoyed it as much as she wanted me to.

Killer Queen by Queen I remember liking, but that was a year or two later.

Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas. Ditto.

And of course Gary Glitter always went down very well in the playground. No, really. To us it was a simple question of whether we wanted to be in each others' gangs, and who was the leader, c'mon, c'mon. Ahh innocence lost.


My first albums were those Pickwick's Top Of The Pops ones with all the recent chart hits covered by distinctly average session musicians. They always had a seventies chick in suede hotpants or a swimsuit on the front to whom I was mysteriously drawn. Edit: WOW! someone's reproduced them all here. Wicked! I love the interweb. I had that one and that one, for sure.

[jutl]

My first albums were those Pickwick's Top Of The Pops ones with all the recent chart hits covered by distinctly average session musicians. They always had a seventies chick in suede hotpants or a swimsuit on the front to whom I was mysteriously drawn. Edit: WOW! someone's reproduced them all here. Wicked! I love the interweb. I had that one and that one, for sure.

Ah yes - I had Vol 23, and the one with this woman on it, which must be one of the ones they've not covered yet. Still, I preferred my Electric Coconut record of moog-driven hits.

[Partridge's Love Child]

My first albums were those Pickwick's Top Of The Pops ones with all the recent chart hits covered by distinctly average session musicians.

I find sooo many of them whilst record hunting in charidee shops.  Picked up their version of Grease the other day for a quid, because my missus is a bird and therefore loves Grease.  We got about three bars into the first track and she said, "No, don't like that" and turned it off in favour of football on 5Live.

[Ghost of Troubled Joe]

As a young kid I used to listen to a rotation of Jeff Wayne, the Beatles late 60s psychedelic stuff, Queen and Elton John's 70s material.

Moving into early teenagerhood, my staples were Oasis (What's the Story was the first album I ever bought), Blur, Pulp, Kula Shaker, U2, Suede...I was a Britpop kid!

[Partridge's Love Child]

Moving into early teenagerhood, my staples were [...] U2 [...] I was a Britpop kid!

Ireland is not a part of Britain.

Christ, I'm a cunt.

[Rats]

the lass who used to fiddle my nappy got me into music, we all used to lie out on the grass and listen to a little stereo, the first time I can remember being really excited by music was "angelo" by abba pretenders brotherhood of man. My favourite band was the pet shop boys then I got into salt n pepper, some rap band I can't remember the name of, paul simon, early rocky queen, iron maiden, motley crue, kiss, slayer, megadeth, guns n roses, motorhead, judas priest. I was a little rocker like horsegun.

[5 Knuckle Shuffle]

Ah yes - I had Vol 23, and the one with this woman on it, which must be one of the ones they've not covered yet. Still, I preferred my Electric Coconut record of moog-driven hits.

And me :)

[weekender]

Aside from the All Aboard LP, which included tracks like My Boomerang Won't Come Back, Two Little Boys, Morning Town Ride, My Brother, Right Said Fred, Teddy Bear's Picnic, Nelly The Elephant etc

weeeeee! i loved that!

I was reminiscing about that album with someone a while back, who claimed to still have their vinyl copy.  It may have been horsegun, I can't remember.  I believe other tracks included 'Puff The Magic Dragon' and some Peter Cook thing about a bumblebee.  I shall Google, it truly was a great album.

[fanny splendid]

Onward Christian Soldiers was a good song.

Tchaikovsky's 1812

Deep Purple, Led Zep, The Eagles, David Bowie, Rose Royce, Stevie Wonder, Isley Brothers, Bob Marley.

Then aged seven, I kind of stopped listening to music until about aged eleven when I got into Dire Straits and Bruce Springsteen.

All downhill from then on...

[Lt Plonker]

Sorry, I've just re-read the original thread. Let me try again.

I think I only began getting 'into' music when I discovered The Monkees on cable one evening, and promptly got my dad to record a tape version of his Monkees CD.

Certain tracks stand out from my childhood - Excerpt from a Teenage Opera, as mentioned, Magic - Pilot, You Can Do Magic - Limmie and the Family Cookin', some Brotherhood of Man tracks, Gilbert O' Sullivan and my dad's Beatles LPs that I used to play religiously when he wasn't in.

Then, when I was about 14 or so, I started compiling my own tapes of tracks from my dad's CD collection and ended up with about 3 tapes of all sorts of stuff.

I love my dad for bombarding me with his music as a kiddywink.

[Bert Thung]

My parents were middle-aged Bowie Freaks. So my pre-school listening included Diamond Dogs and being able to sing Black Country Rock.  Ziggy Stardust gave me nightmares as child.  The first singles I remember adoring were Blockbuster by The Sweet and Sugar Baby  Love by The Rubettes (still think this is one of the all time great singles).  For some reason, James Last was a hero at the tme, not to mention Eric Porter's narration of Peter and The Wolf.

Talking of Pilot.

My Uncle Derek was the Pete Best of Pilot.  Used to play guitar with them in the pubs of Edinburgh.  I also had two of my toddler heroes, The Bay City Rollers living in the same street as me, one of them got married at the church at the top of it when I was six, total hysteria it was. Sharing a communal skip with the crappest band of all time, what memories. My dad was playing dominoes in the local railway club with the two of them (the Longmuirs) when they heard "Bye Bye Baby" hit number one.

I also know a lot of anecdotes about their manager, Tam Paton, but can't tell you any of them.

[23 Daves]

I was reminiscing about that album with someone a while back, who claimed to still have their vinyl copy.  It may have been horsegun, I can't remember.  I believe other tracks included 'Puff The Magic Dragon' and some Peter Cook thing about a bumblebee.  I shall Google, it truly was a great album.

Not "The LS Bumble Bee" surely? That would be a bit risque for children.

What a great thread this is...

My favourite tunes as a kid were "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" (which my mother claims I used to love and ask to have put on pretty much as soon as I could talk - very weird as I almost never play it now), "Little Children" by Billy J Kramer and Dakotas, "Making Plans for Nigel" by XTC, "The Smurf Song" by Father Abraham and The Smurfs, "The Bump" by Kenny, and, above all else, "Wild West Hero" by ELO.  I downloaded that from Soulseek very recently and sat around listening to it feeling very maudlin.

Probably the most interesting thing about ELO (and let's face it, there's not much very interesting about them) is the fact that they were the favourite band of quite a few of my friends when we were all very small.  All these friends have now grown up to be krautrock/ techno/ world music/ avant garde/ obscure indie-heads, and I don't know what this means, but it has to mean something.

And as for "Excerpt from a Teenage Opera" (aka "Grocer Jack") does anyone know what the 'rude' version for this is?  My Dad used to walk around smiling to himself whenever it came on the radio, singing "Grocer Jack/ Grocer Jack/ Is it true what Mummy said/ You...", then he'd cut off and start laughing to himself.  I was told by my mother "he's being disgusting" when I was a kid, and he wouldn't tell me what the rest of the last line he was going to sing was.  I asked him again recently, and he said "What rude version?  I didn't used to sing a rude version, did I?" and grinned to himself again.

Maybe we could have an interesting time guessing.  The only thing I could think it would be is "You fucked her up the crack", but that's not very funny is it?