Some You Tube treats

As much for me as for anything else, I'd like to reference a few videos I have found on YouTube, being special to me in one way or the other as follows:

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME - Yvonne Fair/Vicar of Dibley

This was a song sung by Yvonne Fair which was in the top ten in early 1976. A beautiful song from the heart by a woman standing up in church telling the world that it should have been her at the altar with the bridegroom. Somehow, this song never seems to be played on the radio, but the song has stuck with me all of the last 30 years, so it was really wonderful to see the song be used in footage of what turned out to be the most watched TV programme of Christmas 2006, namely, The Vicar of Dibley, broadcast on Christmas Day. Here is the clip, including just one-and-a-half minutes of the song. Still, much much better than nothing.

C MOON - Paul McCartney and Wings

Going back further into the 1970's to late 1972 for this song by Wings, which was Paul McCartney's group after he left The Beatles. I imagine that this would have been one of their first singles, another simple hummable tune, great for an eleven year old, but still sounding good now. Again, it is a song which never gets played on oldies shows on the radio, so a wonderful thing to find it on YouTube, in exactly the same version that I remember seeing on Top of the Pops 35 years ago.

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY - Marc Almond

This is not so much for the song, but for Marc Almond, me being and having been a great fan of his since I first heard Tainted Love at the swimming pool at St Georges School, on the Via Cassia just outside Rome, in August 1981. There is alot more to wriet about Marc, but for now, I just want to mention that he had a very bad motorcycle crash about two years ago; he was very lucky to survive and he is taking things easily nowadays. Here is he is with an uptempo number from the Jools Holland Hootenanny Show, broadcast at New Year. The one piece of Top of the Pops footage of him I would really like to see again would be Soul Inside from late 1983, although I think I must have it on a video somewhere, thanks to my friend Dave. Thanks Dave!

GENTE DI MARE - Umberto Tozzi and RAF

The Italian entry to the 1987 Eurovision Song Contest. A beautiful song, sung by Umberto Tozzi and RAF, which came second to (yet another) Johnny Logan song. I much preferred this song (of course) and I think the Italians were more than a little disapointed as it was shortly after this that they stopped competing. Fred and I spent our summer holidays of 1987 in Italy, so we had plenty of time to hear this song as a pop song, not just on Eurovision night.

While I am at it (Eurovision - my goodness, what have I started here?) a quick mention for Katarina Hasprova with her 1998 Slovakian entry MODLITBA, another beautiful, timeless song sung by a beautiful woman.