'Echo Beach' - Martha & The Muffins (1980)

"It’s a habit of mine,

To watch the sun go down."

INT. POP BOUTIQUE, COVENT GARDEN.

YESTERDAY AFTERNOON.

YOUNG LADY APPROACHES COUNTER.

POINTS TO AN IRON MAIDEN 7-INCH.

PUZZLED EXPRESSION ON HER FACE.

"What’s this?"

MAN BEHIND COUNTER.

"A 7-inch single.

Have you ever seen an album?

It’s like that. But with just one song on each side."

LADY.

"Is it a one-off?"

MAN.

"No, they made lots of them."

PUZZLED EXPRESSION TURNS TO ONE OF DISBELIEF.

LADY TURNS AND EXITS.

Cue Rod Serling. Surely we’ve entered the Twilight Zone. But no. The woman isn’t suffering from amnesia. And she’s not an alien being or some form of Artificial Intelligence learning our Earth ways. And we haven’t traveled to a post-apocalyptic future where our subterranean grandchildren have only heard legends of a giant ball of fire in the sky, mighty oceans, and mid-80s Heavy Metal chart toppers.         

On overhearing this conversation, I realised this blog has greater historical significance than I first imagined. It began as a way to simply share the many trivial recollections triggered by my record collection. But now it seems the average young person on the street can’t even identify what I’m writing about. The true value of these scribblings is now clear. I’m curating a national archive. Something the great institutions of the world will one day display as a public record of our natural evolution. I should probably look in to getting a grant or something.      

Back in the store, I couldn‘t resist flicking through the second-hand single boxes that had so bemused the young lady. I rarely buy second-hand vinyl. Or second-hand anything. (I can’t even read a magazine if someone has already looked through it. Just another of my quirky charms.) But here was an original pressing of ‘Echo Beach’. For a pound. I’ve loved this single since I first heard it on Annie Nightingale’s Sunday evening show back in the mid-80s. I’ve bought it since on many New Wave CD compilations. But I just had to own the original vinyl. Which is what really defines my generation. And this blog. And obsessive compulsives.