Fascination

Fascination

“Fascination,” I screamed at the top of my voice.

I was in the Royal Albert Hall, looking directly down on the stage from a grand tier box and had lost all sense of decorum in such a prestigious venue. I was with my younger brother and a work colleague; both must have wondered what had suddenly possessed me. I entered as a melancholic twenty-something yet within moments of Everything But The Girl coming onto stage I’d transformed into a screaming, star-struck pre-pubescent groupie.

My colleague had introduced me to the band from a conversation over our regular lunch of egg-mayonnaise sarnies at the local deli’. I had praised the Style Council’s track, Paris Match, and he explained the connection to female vocalist Tracy Thorn.

“Fascination,” I appealed at every break between songs. It was my favourite track from the band’s first album, Eden, a critically under-rated work, at the vanguard of a brief smooth jazz-influenced movement, of the mid-eighties, which swayed with appealing bossa nova tones. I was emerging from the darker fringes of post-punk and discovering that not everyone appreciated my taste in music; certainly not the ladies I was hoping to impress.

My brother would have shared the wisdom, passed on by our grandfather, in the adage, ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’. It was a life-lesson I’ve rarely applied; but on this occasion, although feeling awkward about becoming indebted to a man who was ‘seeing’ my mother, I asked a favour. He was employed at the venue and arranged for us to have the entire box to ourselves and laid-on an impressive spread, all compliments of the house. Vol-au-vent’s were at the cutting edge of my canapé catering experience, while tuna and sweetcorn, in wholemeal, was as posh as sandwiches got back then, all washed down with a case of premium lager.

Fascination. The song has the line ‘…but fascination makes us ask for more than we’d like to know’. My mother’s relationship with this much younger man had increased the tension in a household that was already strained and I certainly wasn’t fascinated to know the details. The resentment I felt towards this ‘liaison’ was visceral; but looking back many years later, how could I begrudge someone a chance to find a semblance of joy.

My mother was a real ‘looker’ in her youth; think Elizabeth Taylor circa Giant. On the other hand, with great respect, Tracy Thorn was never going to win a beauty pageant and gratefully so. This was a decade where talent wasn’t measured by the popularity of your social media. Obscured by good looks she might never have had shared the insightful angst of ‘reassure me when my heart’s not bold enough to bear her name’.

“Fascination,” I called-out hoarsely, with the set drawing to a close and the musicians exiting, “encore, encore!”

The band thankfully return, the guitarist strums those opening chords, Tracey Thorn looks-up from the stage and announces: “For the bloke up in that box, Fascination.”

[Kindly note that this is part of a wider collection titled ‘Just Crumbs’ — Please refer to the ‘foreword’ page for an explanation.]

As a precursor, I invite you to listen to … What else could it be other than the eponymous track performed by EBTG.

Every time I play the song ‘Fascination’ I see this event as clearly if it were yesterday. Thank you, Ms. Thorn.