The day the other music died…

Misty didn’t want to come in last night. For a while I thought that she’d got wind of the ‘operation’ and decided to run off, when she eventually came home she’d been fighting – it must be a young male cat thing – she was all right though, some of her fur was a little loose, but that was about it. It was an odd evening. Gaynor and Holly were out and I found myself at a lose end, this is what happened…

I’m waiting for Gaynor, Hollly and Misty to come home, they’re all out doing their respective things and I’m wandering around aimlessly, fidgeting about as I do when I’m bored. I wander into the kitchen. I usually end up in the kitchen when I’m on my own. Sometimes I listen to radio four but tonight I decide that I’ll listen to some music. I have a pile of un-played CD’s by my CD player in the kitchen. I bought them from Woolworth’s on the last day of the sale, a really eclectic selection - by the way, did you hear that Woolies has been bought by Shop Direct and will be re-launched as an online store this Summer? I guess they only bought it for the brand, but I think it might work. I know that I’ll be going there to take a look anyway. I doubt that they’ll sell clockwork motorboats, and I bet I don’t bump into Peter Lorrie. Anyway, I bought the CD’s for a song, they were all under a couple of pounds, and I can’t really remember what I’d bought. I flick through them. The Killers, Roy Orbison, Nelly Furtado, Lily Allen, Glen Campbell, Lucinda Williams, Black Sabbath, Best of the Sixties, 40 Great Rock n’ Roll Classics.

What! Rock n’ Roll? Sixties? Heavy Rock? Country and Western? I don’t do Country and Western, and I hate Heavy Rock, Rock n’ Roll’s is for old Teds, and Sixties music is so then - why have I bought all this stuff? Have I lost my musical direction? Aren’t I a ‘Tears for Fears / Roxy Music / David Bowie’ aficionado? Thinking about it – did I ever have any musical direction? Perhaps it was ‘Top of the Pops’ directing me all along and now that’s gone…am I really this un-cool?

I put on the sixties CD and listen to a couple of tracks, Dusty Springfield followed by The Animals - I know all the words! How can that be? I don’t do the sixties. I put on the Glen Campbell CD. Within seconds I’m singing along to ‘Linesman for the County’ caught up in the hot dust of a summers day somewhere on a dirt road in the Mid-West of America. I’m worried now.

I don’t often do complete CD’s in a single play, so I take Glen out of the player and try my Rock n’ Roll Classics. Instantly I am caught up in the opening bars of a song and find myself getting ready to sing as the deep sax and tinny piano thump out the intro…Chantilly lace and pretty face, And a pony tail hanging down, That wiggle in the walk and giggle in the talk, Weeeeelll it makes the world go round…I snatch up the black pepper grinder, point it at my mouth and spill black pepper everywhere… There ain't nothing in the world like a big eyed girl, That makes me act so funny, makes me spend my money…I am really into this, my legs are moving to the beat, my facial expressions become ever more animated with each nonsensical line…Make me feel real loose like a long necked goose. Like a girl, oh baby that's what I liiiiiiiiiike. Thank God nobody is around to see me because for a moment in the kitchen, waiting for the cat to roll-in, I AM the Big Bopper. My jeans and polo shirt have disappeared and instead I’m wearing his wide pinstripe suit with a pressed white cotton shirt buttoned up all the way to his neck, no tie, thick black crepe soled shoes, his spiky crew-cut shining with Brylcreem and his six string slung low over my shoulder…. Oh alright baby you knooooooooow what I liiiike.

Tonight, on the anniversary of his death, the Big Bopper, Jiles Perry Richardson, JP to his friends, has come into my kitchen and taken me over with his music. Or at least that’s how it feels. I swing the guitar high above my head - What's that honey? Pick you up at 8, and don't be late. But baby, I ain't got no money honey. Oh alright baby, you knoooooow what I like.

He died in a plane crash in an Iowa cornfield on the third of February 1959, both Buddy Holly and Richie Valens was on the four-seat Beechcraft Bonaza with him. They’d just finished a gig at the Surf Ballroom, Clear Water, Iowa and were flying to Mason City where they had another performance. It was one in the morning - perhaps the pilot fell asleep, who knows? But they never made it. The Big Bopper is always the ‘along with’ when Buddy Holly is mentioned. Sometimes he’s mentioned before Richie Valens, sometimes after, but both of them are always ‘along with’ Buddy. Buddy is always mentioned first.

Not here though. No Buddy to be ‘along with’ this evening. Tonight is all about Jiles Perry Richardson. For a few moments I really am the Big Bopper, singing along – word perfect – to this song of his. It’s a strange moment. It seems that coincidence and fate have brought JP and me together for an instant, fifty years after his death, letting me share the joy of Chantilly Lace with him. Yes, I know it sounds mad – but Rock n’ Roll is mad, and I don’t even like Rock n’ Roll – do I?

I know all the words, the words the Big Bopper sang all those years ago. I was only two when he died, but I know a little about him and I know all the words to this song – perhaps I do like Rock n’ Roll after all.

I know all of the words. Is that what immortality is all about?