Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Lesson learned at a young age

I was brought up in a village called Wylam, in the north-east of England. It was at the back end of the back end of beyond and there was nothing to do except Youth Club (which we all grew out of at 14) and the Wylam Folk Club, which happened every Friday in The Ship (rough pub). You had to be 18, and we all weren't, but we all went anyway and got told off every week and told not to come back next week, but we all came back next week... you get the picture.
There were two guys who could play the spoons and the saw blade (with a violin bow- scary sound!) and also young hopefuls who sang Dylan songs. One of them sat down one evening to play 'Knock, knock, knockin' on Heaven's Door' (ugh, I detest Dylan songs) and got to the end of the song without having thought about how he would deal with the fadeout section. The Lads from school had started joining in towards the end, and wouldn't let the poor guy finish- every time he tried to play a final flourish on the guitar, the Lads bellowed 'KNOCK, KNOCK< KNOCKIN' ON HEAVEN'S DOOR' and started the whole thing off again. Oh it was funny! It went on for about 15 minutes until the organisers stepped in to announce the next act!
Taught me to make sure I worked out how my songs were going to end, just in case the same thing happened to me one day.

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