Saved – Bob Dylan

It was Hot Hits 14. At the time, a single was about 75p, and an album was about £2.50. That was a lot of money for a 10-year-old. But they used to sell these albums for 99p that would contain a bunch of recent hits. The hits would feature session musicians, not the real artists. So, if it was a Donny Osmond song, it would have a woman singing it. And they all had women on the covers.

Then, as time went on, I’d buy second-hand albums or borrow and tape some from my friends. My first new album was Gilbert O’Sullivan’s I’m a Writer Not a Fighter. I got that in the autumn of 1973, probably in Roches Stores. It featured his hit; Get Down. Pat Egan’s record store didn’t open until 1974. That was my main record store in my youth.

Then, in 1974, I bought the Beatles red album. That was a compilation album, but it had a huge impact on me. Over the next few years, I gradually obtained all the Beatles albums, though the only one that I remember buying new was Sergent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I was slightly disappointed with that. I had some of the better songs already on a home-recorded tape of the blue album. Maybe, I just expected too much.

It was around then that I discovered Pink Floyd. The first album that someone lent me was Wish You Were Here. The first album that I bought new was The Wall in 1979. I loved all the Pink Floyd albums up until they split around 1982. I like some of the individual songs by the post-Roger Waters Pink Floyd, but I don’t really see them as Pink Floyd. I do love their 1994 song High Hopes. And I did purchase Pulse, their live album, in 1995.

I could go on forever with all this 😀. I was big into punk/new wave in the late 1970s, so I’d snap up anything by The Stranglers, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, and Elvis Costello. All these were more “new wave” than punk, but I did have some pure punk records too. It wasn’t just punk. I bought Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder in 1977, and I would have sneakily bought some other non-punk records over these few years.

Then in 1980, the year that I committed my life to Christ, I bought Slow Train Coming and Saved by Bob Dylan. I was more interested in Dylan’s conversion than Dylan himself, but over the subsequent years, I familiarized myself with all his other material. I can’t say that I absolutely love any of his secular albums though. But I do like most of the songs. Blood on the Tracks would be my favourite of his secular albums.

In the 1980s, I was big into the Style Council. And in the 1990s, Paul Weller’s Stanley Road would be another contender for my favorite album. 1995 feels like a very magical year for me because our two eldest kids were toddlers, just beginning to speak. At the time I would have taken it for granted, but after a few years, everything about 1995 seemed magical.

Back around 1998, I bought This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours by the Manic Street Preachers. I associate the next few years with them. I had heard of them in the early 1990s, but they just seemed a bit mad. But I read their biography, and though they don’t share my Christian worldview, I felt a strange connection with them. I had grown fond of Wales in the early 1990s.

I discovered Radiohead in 2005. I had heard their songs in the 1990s, but I watched a TV show of the best albums of all time, and OK Computer was number 1. So, I listened to it, was impressed. It almost felt like an opera. And I checked out all their other early material. I was never all that impressed with their later material.

And, of course, there’s U2. I was a bit cynical about them throughout the 1980s. I used to see them in the Arcadia in Cork when they were starting out, and I didn’t view them as particularly impressive. I did like a few of their songs. But, I bought Achtung Baby in 1993, and was greatly impressed. Maybe it was a mid-life crisis 😀. And I’ve liked everything they’ve done since then. When I was young, I’d never have thought that an Irish band would be so big,

A few years ago, I rediscovered Genesis and Prefab Sprout. I had a few albums by both back in the 1980s but wasn’t deeply into them. But my daughter got into them and encouraged me to investigate their lesser-known albums. So, I’ve been big into them in recent years. Maybe Andromeda Heights is my favourite Prefab Sprout album.

I had And Then There Were Three by Genesis back in 1980, but I didn’t like them much because they weren’t Pink Floyd 😀. But now I love all their albums.

I sometimes wonder if there are some wonderful old albums that I’ve missed. I do listen to some supposedly top albums but I’m generally disappointed.

The Who is another band I rediscovered. I saw Tommy on my 15th birthday, and I wasn’t very impressed, but I like it more now. And I saw the film Quadrophenia when I was 17. It didn’t feature much music, but having listened to the album in recent years, I’m very impressed. I particularly like Love, Reign O’er Me.

Horslips was the first ever concert that I went to, in December 1975. I was only 12. They played in the Cork City Hall. I went to Ursula’s record store in Oliver Plunkett Street earlier that day in the hope of meeting them, but I think that they were late, and I left before they came. Book of Invasions was released in 1976.

The Undertones would have been one of the last punk band that I saw in Downtown Kampus in the Arcadia in the Spring of 1980. I often classify that as the best concert that I ever went to. Best thing that came out of Derry since Dana 😀.