The first record I ever bought was I Want to Hold Your Hand. I was 11 years old, and had just heard it at a kids' party (where I also learned about "spin the bottle", but that's another story). All my friends were completely mad about the Beatles, and we awaited every new release with breathless pre-teen anticipation.
A few years later (1968 I think), I won a phone-in competition at a local Sydney radio station. I was the first to work out that "Drofstobba" was "Abbotsford" backwards. For this, I won 5 Enid Blyton books, and got to have a tour of the radio station, accompanied by a couple of other prize winners.
We were all ushered into a studio, and the person in it produced a copy of the single of Hey Jude/Revolution, which had arrived at the station by aeroplane that day and had not been heard publicly. We were told we were the first people outside the station to hear it, and that it would not be played anywhere on radio until later that day. I remember what a remarkable song Hey Jude was was for the time. At over 7 minutes, it seemed a little subversive, and the radio station clearly didn't like its length at all! Still, they played it, long fade out and everything.
It's pretty hard to believe that was all over 40 years ago. The music still sounds as fresh as the day it was born to me!
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The first record I ever bought was I Want to Hold Your Hand. I was 11 years old, and had just heard it at a kids' party (where I also learned about "spin the bottle", but that's another story). All my friends were completely mad about the Beatles, and we awaited every new release with breathless pre-teen anticipation.
A few years later (1968 I think), I won a phone-in competition at a local Sydney radio station. I was the first to work out that "Drofstobba" was "Abbotsford" backwards. For this, I won 5 Enid Blyton books, and got to have a tour of the radio station, accompanied by a couple of other prize winners.
We were all ushered into a studio, and the person in it produced a copy of the single of Hey Jude/Revolution, which had arrived at the station by aeroplane that day and had not been heard publicly. We were told we were the first people outside the station to hear it, and that it would not be played anywhere on radio until later that day. I remember what a remarkable song Hey Jude was was for the time. At over 7 minutes, it seemed a little subversive, and the radio station clearly didn't like its length at all! Still, they played it, long fade out and everything.
It's pretty hard to believe that was all over 40 years ago. The music still sounds as fresh as the day it was born to me!