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And another memory of my youth is defaced
- Author: Colin
- Filed under: Criticism
May 3,2008
The lilting harmonies. The aged war veterans, Salvation Army Band volunteers and balloon-wielding youngsters, meandering down the northern dell to the village centre. The overgelled hair.
Those are my memories of “Life in a Northern Town,” a wonderful song by Stephen “Tintin” Duffy and the Dream Academy, and a top ten hit in 1986. A real product of 1980s Britpop.
As an economic history nerd, I also saw the song as an homage to the personal experience of a region stereotyped by a several centuries of wrenching industrial development - textile workers, shipyard workers and miners.
Which is why I was confused to see this video on CMT today:
Thankfully, Sugarland, Big Town and Jake Owen don’t drift too far from the original … and didn’t make their version too “twangy.”
Still, Blake’s Jerusalem did not refer to the hills of West Virginia, and neither does Life in a Northern Town.
Technorati Tags: Dream Academy, Life in a Northern Town, Sugarland, country music
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2 Responses for "And another memory of my youth is defaced"
I don’t know that this is quite “defacement”. As a big fan of both 80s Britpop and modern Country (Sugarland are a fave), I think that they’re both great.
Interestingly, some of the social experiences sung about in modern country music are strongly akin to the social experience of the North in Dream Academy’s original. If you take a look at the Wikipedia entry for the song (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_In_A_Northern_Town), you can trace the threads of kinship. They make sense.
Still, I can’t see The Housemartins getting covered by SHeDAISY any time soon.
I think it is more likely to find Norman Cook’s fingerprints somewhere in the SHEDaisy catalogue of experience, given how active he continues to be.
I agree, the wikipedia entry makes it seem like there are great similarities, but I would feel more comfortable if some band from Pennsylvania or Ohio had produced the cover.
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