We’ve come across a few in my collection like this one, bruised and wounded, records that have lived a life, but records that are so good that it feels wrong to banish them to the £1 or £2 bin where they would end up. So I bring them home, clean them up and play them and as long as they don’t jump or skip (I’m lucky enough to own a pair of Technics SL-1210’s and if a record jumps on them it really is shot) I understand that the pops and clicks and crackles are part of it’s journey.

I’ve never really been a big Bob Dylan fan, that was my Dad and my Brothers thing. Don’t misunderstand me, I understand his position and influence in the grand scheme of scheme things (without Dylan there is likely no Springsteen) but I tend to prefer my Dylan songs performed by others, The Byrds (“Mr Tambourine Man”, “All I Really Want To Do”, “Chimes Of Freedom”) and the Chocolate Watch Band’s “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” spring to mind, but for some reason as a teenager I found my self in possession of this album on cassette.

I knew the title track well but the song that completely fascinated me was “With God On Our Side”, which I played over and over and over again to the point where, hearing it again this morning for the first time in many years, I still know all the words. I’ve never been convinced by (organised) religion, to this day I think it’s a dangerous mental illness. If you need that to get you through life then knock yourself out but please, keep your fairytales away from me and stop using your imaginary friend to justify killing people with a different imaginary friend (or those of us that don’t need an imaginary friend). 

Over 7 minutes of stumbling guitar strumming and harmonica “With God On Our Side” addresses Americas obsession with “God”, it’s slaughter of the indigenous population, the Spanish American war, first and second World wars, hating the Russians and the impending nuclear war everyone was expecting in the ‘60’s and Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, each verse proclaiming all sides had/have “God on their side” (the First World War verse ends with the callous yet devastating “For you don't count the dead, When God's on your side”). The final verse sees Dylan making a plea “That if God's on our side, He'll stop the next war”…we’re still waiting. It’s a song I don’t think I’ll ever tire of.

That’s the song I focus on but there are obviously others “The Times They Are A-Changin'” is a 60’s folk “This Is The Modern World” (“And you better start swimmin’, Or you'll sink like a stone” leads to “I know where I am and going to”); “The Ballad Of Hollis Brown” covers a story of a desperate farmer driven to familicide due to poverty; there’s the gorgeous “One Too Many Mornings”; “The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll” looks at how white people effectively got away with murdering African Americans by looking at the killing of Baltimore barmaid Hattie. All this is delivered with one guitar, one voice and some harmonica.

This was Dylan’s third album and the penultimate release before he horrified the folkies and went electric on “Bringing It All Back Home”. He wasn’t the first protest singer and he certainly won’t be the last but it’s arguable he may be the most important. There’s a straight line that can be drawn starting with the travelling troubadors of Medieval times through the Blues and string band musicians of early 20th century America to Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger in the 40’s and onto Dylan and Joan Baez in America onto the likes of Ewan MacColl, Dick Gaughan and The Dubliners this side of the Atlantic and continuing still through Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg and now Frank Turner and Sam Fender. Call them folkies, call them protest singers but those dissenting voices have always been, and always will be, important to me.

With God On Our Side - https://youtu.be/5y2FuDY6Q4M?si=yDILiADvR7tiG2AZ

Susan Ballion, Steven Bailey, William Broad and a few others were early followers of the Sex Pistols. Melody Makers Caroline Coon noticed them at Pistols gigs and dubbed them the Bromley Contingent, as that’s where some of them came from. By this time Susan had become Siouxsie Sioux, Steven was known as Steve Severin and William dubbed himself Billy Idol (after one of his school teachers had described him as idle). They all formed bands that would become the flag bearers for the first wave of Punk Rock. Billy joined Chelsea and eventually morphed them into Generation X. Siouxsie and Severin hooked up, initially, with Marco Pirroni and Sid Vicious to form Siouxsie & The Banshees to play a 20 minute spot at the 100 Club Punk Special on 20th September 1976. They had 2 days “rehearsal”, didn’t know any songs and Siouxsie recited The Lords Prayer over the band “improvising” behind her.

Thus began one of Punk’s greatest bands. By November 1977 they had replaced Marco and Sid with John McKay and Kenny Morris, appeared on Granada TV’s “So It Goes” and recorded their first John Peel session. But they were finding it hard to get a record deal. Graffiti proclaiming “SIGN THE BANSHEES” appeared across London and John Peel tried to strike a deal to sign them to BBC Records ! Finally in June 1978 they signed to Polydor Records who promised them the complete artistic control they wanted and in August “Hong Kong Garden” was released as their debut single.

This rather wonderful singles comp includes most of their A-sides from 1978 to 1981. For some reason it includes album track “Mirage” and omits A-side “Mittageisen (Metal Postcard)” in favour of its B-side “Love In A Void”. But these are minor quibbles. In that period they released 4 albums (“The Scream”, “Join Hands”, “Kaleidoscope” and “Ju Ju”) and the leap in musical progression is quite astonishing to hear. “Hong Kong Garden” was followed by the atonal, spiky pairing of “The Staircase (Mystery)” and “Playground Twist”. Less than a year later (after the Germanic/Motorik and missing from this album “Mittageisen”) they gave us psychedelic pop gems “Happy House” and “Christine”. Then just a year after that “Spellbound” and “Arabian Nights” invented Goth (I’ll leave you to decide if that was a good thing).

Siouxsie retained her ice-queen veil of mystery even though I’m certain she adorned just as many bedroom walls (girls and boys) as Debbie Harry and Gaye Advert. We all adored her but she was ever so slightly scary with it. I was lucky enough to tour the US alongside the Banshees for 6 weeks in the early ’90’s and it turns out she was OK, even though we were all on best behaviour when she was around. 

Playground Twist - https://youtu.be/kyZ0-FtNvf4?si=HonU7EvRndvkR7XI

Shhhhh, whisper it quietly (cos I’m sure there will be many who disagree) but of all the Van Morrison albums I’ve heard, and that is not even close to all of them, “Into The Music” is my favourite. It’s largely an upbeat Celtic soul/pop record and Van sounds, well, happy during most of it which is not an emotion you often associate with Van Morrison. 

There was a time when I owned quite a lot of Van Morrison albums (“Astral Weeks”, “Moondance”, “St Dominic’s Preview”, “Veedon Fleece”, “Tupelo Honey”, “Hard Nose The Highway” among them). He was signed to Polydor at the time and every time I visited their offices I would help myself to copies of whatever was around which is how I ended up with so many. The only ones I have left are “Moondance” (https://www.whiterabbitrecords.co.uk/blog/read_205111/2023-albums-thing-233-van-morrison-moondance.html) and I now have picked this one up again. 

It begins on the upbeat “Bright Side Of The Road” and continues in much the same vein throughout. It’s a sunny Sunday morning just let it wash over you kinda record. “You Make Me Feel So Free”, “Angeliou”, “Stepping Out Queen”, “You Make Me Feel So Free”, “The Healing Has Begun”, they’re all beauties. In fact the only thing I’m not totally sold on here is the cover of the old 50’s hit “It's All In The Game”, I’m sure Van is referencing Tommy Edwards 1958 US hit but I can’t get it out of my head that Cliff Richard had a sizeable hit with it here in the UK, laying the groundwork for "Whenever God Shines His Light" I guess !

You Make Me Feel So Free - https://youtu.be/chFE3kZTMec?si=wmxtxwczXgcaMOdv