I Get So Excited

To answer the question, rather than waffling 😀, I’ll tell you about Tokyo. I have this Walkabout Mini-golf game for my Meta Oculus, and they release a new course every couple of months. This month it was Tokyo. I was excited about that. I suppose that counts as the last thing I was excited about.

Up until late 1972, I generally got excited about free gifts in the Whizzer and Chips comic, such as plastic whistles or whatever. Then I got into pop music. I remember being very excited about Thin Lizzy’s first UK hit, Whiskey in the Jar. And the lead singer was Irish. I saw them in the Cork City Hall in 1980.

In 1974, I read in a pop magazine that you could join the Gilbert O’Sullivan fan club, so I sent away my postal order, and I was so excited when the first package arrived from New Bond Street, London. The only thing that I remember now was a Gilbert O’Sullivan pen 😀.

In late 1974, having perhaps heard that Gilbert was influenced by the Beatles, I decided to take the plunge and buy a Beatles album: 1962-1966. In the next few years, I gradually discovered all their material. Each new album brought great excitement. I even got a little excited with Now and Then, which was released in late 2023.

For a few years, I had little interest in prog rock. I was even a little disappointed with the direction the Beatles took after 1966. But that all changed. My most exciting Pink Floyd moment was hearing Dogs from the album Animals in January 1977 in Hennessey’s record store, Cork.

Again, I was initially sceptical about this genre, but I got into it in a big way in late 1977. My most exciting moment was getting a postcard from bassist, Jean-Jacques Burnel after writing to the Stranglers in early 1980.

I wasn’t a Bob Dylan fan, but throughout my teens, I was trying to figure out which religion was correct, if any. I was a Roman Catholic, but I never really bonded with that. I was more interested in Jesus himself. I had bought Slow Train Coming, his first Christian album, in early 1980. Then, in June 1980, I saw it in Pat Egan’s record store in Patrick Street Cork. I snapped it up immediately.

It’s a nice Christian chorus that we used to sing in Bermondsey Christian Fellowship, London, back in 1983. I love the song, but I tend to feel grateful rather than excited. Maybe I felt excited 45 years ago when I first realized that I was forgiven 😀.