The Undertones “The Undertones”

 

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#627 in the Series) is The Undertones.

This is an album that claimed a place in my heart 30 years ago and retains it to this day. And that’s not just because of its musical merits, of which there are indeed many. It’s also due to the time, the place and the circumstances during which I first really got into it, and the company I was keeping at the time, all of which invoke nothing but good, happy memories.

I’d like to take you back now, way way back to the long, hot, glorious (in my recall at least!) summer of 1982. Back when I still had my youth, my good looks (!) and a full head of hair. It was a fantastic year and a great time to be young, especially if you loved music. I turned 16 that year, slap bang in the middle of that summer in fact, at the start of June.

At that time there was a group of us, friends from the same area, who would hang around together getting up to all kinds of mischief. We were a pretty close bunch back then, myself, my younger cousin and four or five other good pals. We didn’t get up to anything  too serious, teenage stuff mostly, and our main pursuits were playing football every day until it got dark, buying as many records as we could afford and getting drunk on cheap sherry at the weekends, Bliss!

Every Friday and Saturday we would gather at the infamous  Bevvy Tree armed with alcohol and a Ghetto Blaster. These were fun filled nights when it seemed like we didn’t have a care in the world.

My best friend at the time was a guy called Alan and before we headed out on those weekend nights he’d come over to my house. We’d go up to my room and play records until it was time to go and meet up with the rest of the gang. And there were two albums that we played almost constantly: London Calling by The Clash and this superb effort, The Undertones self-titled debut. The Undertones were Alan’s favourite band and it was him who got me into the album, like most people at the time I already knew the singles from it : “Jimmy Jimmy,” “Get Over You,” “Here Comes The Summer” and of course “Teenage Kicks,” one of the greatest singles ever made. The full album turned out to be joyous though, song after song of punk/pop delight, all focused on the very things that affected us at the time, girls, lack of money, arguing with your parents, not having a job etc, etc. This was one major reason why we liked the band, they were just like us, council estate kids with the same hopes, dreams and worries that we had. Hell, look at the cover, they even dressed just like us!

So, old Al and I would stand at my bedroom window looking out at the world and chatting about life, love, the universe and all that bollocks. As you do. I may even have still been nursing a wee bit of a hurting heart at this time, there’d been a girl recently who had, in short order, dumped me, caused me pain, starting going out with my cousin then moved away down to England with her parents !  Oh well, you get over stuff like that a lot quicker at that age and my friend and this record helped me through it in no time.

As I’ve said, they were happy times but even all the great memories from those days are slightly tinged by sadness.

As is the way of these things, we all moved on. Got jobs, started new relationships, moved away from home…the  gang broke up over the next few years and scattered to the four winds. My old pal had a few bad times . I won’t go into it much because it’s his personal business but it would be fair to say that a few (well, a lot) of the things in his life didn’t work out the way he would have wanted them to. We didn’t see each other for a long time after he joined the army and when he left it he then left town for years, worked on the oil rigs for a time. When he eventually came back we met up a couple of times but soon lost touch again.

Nowadays I still see him occasionally, we bump into each other on the odd Saturday, if I’m down in the town centre. We’ll have a brief chat and when I walk away I’m always smiling . In my head I just cannot separate the memories of those carefree happy times and the hours we spent listening to this album, they are inextricably linked and always will be.

This one’s for you Miv, a true Rockin’ Humdinger.

— Stephen Dalrymple, Glasgow, Scotland

Track Listing

Side One

1. Family Entertainment (ONeill) 2:37
2. Girls Don’t Like It (ONeill) 2:19
3. Male Model (Bradley, ONeill, ONeill) 1:54
4. I Gotta Getta (ONeill) 1:53
5. Teenage Kicks (ONeill) 2:25
6. Wrong Way (Doherty) 1:23
7. Jump Boys (ONeill) 2:40
8. Here Comes the Summer (ONeill) 1:42

1. Get Over You (ONeill) 2:44
2. Billy’s Third (Doherty) 1:57
3. Jimmy Jimmy (ONeill) 2:41
4. True Confessions (Bradley, ONeill) 1:52
5. (She’s A) Runaround (ONeill) 1:49
6. I Know a Girl (Bradley, ONeill, ONeill) 2:35
7. Listening In (Bradley, ONeill) 2:24
8. Casbah Rock (ONeill) 0:47

Personnel

Links