It was a Friday morning in December 1985. I remember it well. Barry waltzed into our office, hung up his scarf and coat and plopped himself down at his desk. He gripped the edges of his seat and spun around on it contemplatively once or twice. He had news and he couldn’t keep it in.
“Guess what?” he said, “I like someone new.”
Barry and I shared a corner of a screened-off open plan office on a roundabout in Bracknell. We worked hard and well-together but there was always time to dissect the crucial occurrences of any given day.
I didn’t have to ask Barry who this ‘Someone New’ was. Nobody did. On that Friday morning, not as long ago as some of you might think, Barry was not alone in having fallen instantly in love, a little bit, with Whitney Houston.
Thursday night was ‘Top of the Pops’ night. Nobody was avidly glued to it in 1985, nobody was drooling with anticipation of the next act to debut, but nobody was missing it either. Everybody was keeping an eye on it, to see who or what might suddenly appear.
And I think a lot of people fell a bit on love with Whitney that evening.
The song was, of course, ‘Saving All My Love for You’ and we didn’t see a live performance of it that evening, we saw the video.
Who couldn’t fall in love a little bit with that girl that evening? She sang like a dream, she had the most extraordinarily beautiful, open, face and she looked so very happy to be saving all her love for me. Natural talent and beauty simply exuded from her.
We had never heard of her before that evening and we have never forgotten her since.
Every Sunday morning, the radio alarm comes on at the normal week-day time and usually gets clicked off again within a grumpy New York Minute. This morning, in the brief moment between coming on and being switched back off again, a snippet of news slipped through. Whitney Houston is dead.
When I got up and thought of her a bit, I thought of a Friday morning in December 1985 when Barry came in and proclaimed his latest flame.
To touch someone’s life, however briefly, what more can we ask?
“Guess what?” he said, “I like someone new.”
Barry and I shared a corner of a screened-off open plan office on a roundabout in Bracknell. We worked hard and well-together but there was always time to dissect the crucial occurrences of any given day.
I didn’t have to ask Barry who this ‘Someone New’ was. Nobody did. On that Friday morning, not as long ago as some of you might think, Barry was not alone in having fallen instantly in love, a little bit, with Whitney Houston.
Thursday night was ‘Top of the Pops’ night. Nobody was avidly glued to it in 1985, nobody was drooling with anticipation of the next act to debut, but nobody was missing it either. Everybody was keeping an eye on it, to see who or what might suddenly appear.
And I think a lot of people fell a bit on love with Whitney that evening.
The song was, of course, ‘Saving All My Love for You’ and we didn’t see a live performance of it that evening, we saw the video.
Who couldn’t fall in love a little bit with that girl that evening? She sang like a dream, she had the most extraordinarily beautiful, open, face and she looked so very happy to be saving all her love for me. Natural talent and beauty simply exuded from her.
We had never heard of her before that evening and we have never forgotten her since.
Every Sunday morning, the radio alarm comes on at the normal week-day time and usually gets clicked off again within a grumpy New York Minute. This morning, in the brief moment between coming on and being switched back off again, a snippet of news slipped through. Whitney Houston is dead.
When I got up and thought of her a bit, I thought of a Friday morning in December 1985 when Barry came in and proclaimed his latest flame.
To touch someone’s life, however briefly, what more can we ask?
7 comments:
Yes, another fallen star.
x
I can remember it as clearly as you have, Ken. I was transfixed. And I videotaped that song something like four times in a row as the weeks went by and it stayed at Number One.
It's a moment - like all perfect moments - that stays clear in its time, as if it's preserved in amber.
Simon Ricketts
Nicely done Ken. A warm, and more importantly, real tribute.
I’m afraid have no special memories attached to Whitney Houston. Watching the tributes to her in fact the only thing that really jumps out at me is her role in The Bodyguard and the single ‘I Will Always Love You’ which I later heard Dolly Parton perform—she wrote the song—and I find I far prefer Dolly’s version. As for Whitney’s death my first and only thought when I heard the news on BBC Breakfast was: What a waste.
I wish that all the pieces we're going to hear in the next few days could be like this, not the gushing Hollywood sentimentality that will roll from the tongues of musics great and good.The same people who gently took her hand and said do what you like so long as the royalties keep rolling in.To expand on Simons lovely words and paraphrase 'The Devils Backbone':What is a ghost?A memory?An insect caught in amber? You've caught this moment beautifully, thanks Ken. JoJo
Lovely blog, Ken. So many people have died at the age of 48 ... am thinking of Judy Garland. How sad it is that they can bring so much pleasure to people but be so devastatingly unhappy themselves.
was I a fan of her kind of singing? No. Did I believe she had an extraordinary voice and did I understand why so many people DID love her singing? Absolutely. She had amazing talent, and I actually DID love her hit from The Bodyguard. It's the one song of hers that I truly loved from start to finish, but who cares?
What hurts is the waste. And, as another person mentioned, the thought of HOW MANY people who are so shocked, so stricken by her death did not really give a rat's patout about whether or not she was falling, so long as the money rolled in?
Your tribute was simple and heart-felt and it made me tear up. Forty-eight is so very young, and it's a time of life when a singer's voice I feel is at its richest.
A beautiful voice and woman when she began. So troubled and so damaged by the end. But you are right. She touched millions deeply and THAT was surely no waste.Not even close.
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