In December 1981 I was a very young and impressionable teenager and that’s when my love affair with the Human League started. Back in that rain soaked month I was on a weekend break with an organisation my mother was a volunteer worker for, the venue was Blackpool and it was the beginning of the illuminations period there. I recall the hotel on the seafront having a space invader machine and with the neon lights shining in through the window it all seemed very futuristic and surreal. The hotel jukebox was playing Boney M and other hits of the late 70’s disco period and then someone put the Human League on, this completed the futuristic setting and the sublime synth tunes graced my young eager ears. Of course I was unaware the Human League had been around for sometime and I remember being drawn away from the space invader machine to the juke box and putting them on again, the song was ‘Love Action’ and it reached number 3 in the charts, the follow up single ‘Don’t you want me?’ reached Number 1 in December.
I was sharing a room in the hotel with some older boys and that night I was suddenly awoken from my slumber by them singing ‘Don’t you want me baby?’ as they drunkenly staggered around the hotel room, they were all about 18 and very naïve but I was sort of awe struck by them at the time as they wore their ‘kiss me quick’ boater straw hats and silver shiny suits with slim luminous coloured ties. They carried on slurring lyrics and recounting the nights events and I listened intently to their adventures, envying them, wanting to be them, wanting to get out there in the neon infested town and boogie to the Human League, thinking my time would come and eventually a few years later of course – it did. The Human League have been with me ever since and they always evoke warm nostalgia when I hear them. The lead singer Phil Oakey is almost 50 yet they still make fab tunes, always in their distinctive yet timeless style. They are also touring again this year and I really gotta see them again – they really are in a league of their own!
2 comments:
was never really a fan of that sort of music.
but recently my adventures into electronica, laptop and biphop music have meant that i find myself bopping (well weebling) to bands who have obviously taken their inspiration from the human league and others.
bands such as the gorgeous hotel motel or client.
even worse is i am friends with someone whose best friend was part of human league.
see how easy it is to name drop.
It was Boney M that struck me there - my parents had lots of records when we were younger but few tapes. Boney M was THE tape for party games - musical chairs, pass the parcel the lot. And rather embarassingly we used to all dance round my mixed race cousin when Brown Girl in the Ring started playing... The shame.
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