On June 12th this year, I’ll be 80 years old. I was looking forward to it. I had a surprise for everyone. We had The Royal Albert Hall booked, and I was going to play one last gig. I was going to call it ‘The Last Gig’, but then ‘The Great Lurg’ hit. At first it didn’t alter our course. There was a hope in the first couple of months that we’d somehow miss it, or that it could be confined in some way. Or it might be the same as SARS, and just peter out. I was going for once a week physiotherapy at the time.
Things start happening to the body at this age that need to be caught, like, for instance, muscle mass departure. While joints that have been abused for decades, like the joint between the thumb and the hand, are getting into new realms of pain. Perhaps playing electric guitar is more gentle on the hands, over time, because the strings are lighter and easier to put down onto the fretboard, although I wouldn’t like to be wearing a Les Paul custom for a few decades. That’d be a necklace too far.
For the majority of my life I’ve played a steel string acoustic guitar, which I suspect is the most telling of all guitars on all body parts. An acoustic guitar is forgiving if you’re just strumming chords, but if you’re using all of your fingers on both hands to bend strings and crunch out post-blues finger-style emotional events, then effects are eventually going to be felt, at which point, cures for pain might well be sought. Reluctantly at first perhaps, but as discomforts become fixtures….
So, after ‘The Last Tour’, a little repair work was needed. I was just a little worried about it because it was cramping my style, my ability to deliver in the traditional manner. But then there was this background of noise coming from China, where authorities were practicing what they usually practice there when they want to stamp something out. Ruthless Tyrannical Takeover.
One particular Chinese doctor, Dr Li Wenliang, was telling the world, or trying to, that a dangerous disease was on the loose. He was soon dead.. We became cynically circumspect, and life went on, for about another month. Until there was news that this bug, unlike the SARS thing they’d had over there a decade previously, was spreading to parts outside China, and seemingly quickly. I ordered masks the same day, and told my physio that I wouldn’t be back until.. That was March 3rd2020.
She shook hands with me over someone else’s shoulder. Another female who was rooting in her bag. We were all at the pay point. I remember thinking that it was the highest handshake I’d ever had, and as it’s turned out, it was the last handshake I’ve had until now.
2020 was going to be such a brilliant year…. but things weren’t going to plan. Here I am a year and 3 months later, and we’ve been out to the shops together about 5 times, we’ve been out to eat twice, and I’ve been to the doctors’ twice for both jabs. Grim. But I did want to live; and I am vulnerable. I have things to do yet. There’s stuff to write, and a record to be made. I like to make recordings with tech-articulate friends helping me to do the heavy lifting, so recording has been put on the backburner until current restrictions can be lifted. I suspect that no one wants to kill me, leastways, none of my immediate conspirators.
Vaccinations have been difficult, and will continue to be. The shops have opened for the first time in months today, but T, who has been doing the weekly shop, hasn’t had her vaccine yet. It’s due, and she is in the queue, but I don’t want her taking undue risks.
So times haven’t been that easy…
This is the understatement that everyone now needs to make, except for smarties who’ve managed to earn an extra couple of billion Bitcoin using malware. The truth is that house arrest isn’t too much fun after the first year. It’s necessary, and we’ve had to do it, so it’s been a bit like National Service. There are places on the planet where apes who describe themselves as people, have been trained by politicians to believe that SARS-CoV-2 is a myth. Death from SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t necessarily change their opinions on their deathbeds, which is a form of death by propaganda. Hey-ho.. Myself, I’ll take the first vaccine available, and have done, because thatscience has worked for me all my life. And because I’m a pragmatist.
I miss my friends, and it’s beginning to look like no one is going to be allowed to come over from Britain for my birthday.. My great big 80th party, where I would be tipsy on people, company, drink and substance, and give a half cut speech to the room about everything and nothing; which would last for at least a week due to constant interruptions, heckling, and any manner of brain fade.
Where I would at last be able to stand as living proof that, contrary to ‘popular’? opinion, I’d been responsible, and taken care not to throw my life away stupidly, at an earlier age, even though my conscience had constantly thrown my career away at all stages.
That, after all, I had been responsible enough to own a Ferrari, though a. I couldn’t have afforded the debt, b. It had never occurred to me that I should own a Ferrari, Dave, c. My ego has never needed that kind of a silly toy and d. Decreasingly so.
So it looks like it’ll be just the two of us sat down to fish and chips and a bottle of Prosecco on June the 12th. Maybe we should invite a magpie, a couple of jackdaws and four and twenty blackbirds to partake.
Love and Pestilence
roy
XXX
PS. I did own a second hand tank at one stage..
Lovely to hear you’ve survived the pestilence bit, and are ready for just a little more love. The Ferrari would never have looked right anyway. All best wishes for your 80th and I’m sorry it’s not likely to be as sociable as you deserve. Standing by for more lovely noisy thoughts sometime soon.
Thanks for the update, great to know you are well and about to record some more!!
Happy big 0 in absentia
Hi Roy
I first saw you 53 or 54 years ago at Luton College in the canteen…a small gig eh.
Having seen you loads of times since, I was hoping to get one more in. Damned Covid.
You have given me a great deal of please with your performances.
Happy times eh.
Take care,
Jane Farmer, xx
Happy upcoming birthday. I doubt that I will be able to fly over in the near future, so I’ll have to settle for some new music. Been a fan for about 50 years (where does the time go?). Witnessed you in Toronto in the early 80’s. Thanks for the music, it’s always a pleasure to revisit each album.
Bob
Nice work Roy, as always. For June 12th – maybe invite the cameras so we can all join in for a global toast.
What kind of Tank was it, a vaping tank, military tank, bong, cistern ?
Hi Roy, hope you’re well. It’s 4 in the morning my eyes hurt but my brains wide awake. Thinking a million thoughts hoping to capture one if only to mull it over. Happy 80th Chips and Wine can’t think of anything more perfect . Love Irish chips best in the universe I’ll take on any alien who says otherwise. Take Care Maria, finally going to sleep. Xxx
Take care Roy, Great to hear you and yours are all ok.
Loved to read this. I am really happy to know that you have already had your vaccine and hopefully Tracy will have hers soon.
Things can only get better now. As you said, there is an album to do and we will be waiting for it.
Cheers
João
Hi Roy, nice to know you and Tracy are well, can’t think of a better way to spend a birthday, fish n chips and bottle of fiz with a loved one! I’ll be opening a bottle myself on the 12th and toasting to your good health and happiness.
Ian
I’m so glad you haven’t succumbed to the conspiracy BS that so many supposed ‘alternate’ thinkers seem to have fallen for. A genuine free thinker doesn’t conform even to “non-conformist” dogma. The Darwin Awards have obvious candidates for 2020/21.
I saw you at the Palladium two years ago and brought a friend that had never heard you before. She said it was the best gig she’d ever been to, and she worked in the music biz!
I really hope I get to see you play one last time. That will make it 20 times, although I can only properly remember a handful of those. Damn substances… I know I loved every one though. We met at the Metropolis Studio recording too.
It’s amazing how you can still shine so brightly despite a shortening wick. You and Robert Plant seem to age like a fine whiskey.
Smiles.
Happy 80th, however it turns out on the day. Look forward to the possibility of new material.
Ahhh Roy…..Happy Birthday for June 12th.
Nothing wrong with fish n’ chips but, old boy, do upgrade the Prosecco to a Dom Perignon (perhaps with a touch of the black stuff)….after all…it is your 80th !
Speaking of which: did you know that 81 is the new 80 ? So, maybe the RAH in 2022 for the ‘The Last Gig’ ?
Wishing you a happy 80th birthday, and thank you for the music and poetry.
Hey Roy- Nice to hear your “voice” again. I remember thinking my 50+ year old house guest was an “elder.” Ha! Still have great memories of those couple of years…or was it just one? Time blurs. Happy impending 80th. I put your music out into the cosmos almost every time I’m on the radio. – Much Love to you and T, Jim Neill
I worked for Andy at Cousins, but was never a musician.
I remember you doing McGoohan’s Blues for us all (at a flat in Parsons Green), before its release. One, or maybe two, strings broke but you hammered on to the end. I was a huge fan of The Prisoner.
It remains a most vivid memory, from a time when quite a lot of life went by in a blur.
I remain a mere stripling of 75. Thanks for some wonderful memories…
Happy Birthday Roy, keep doing the things you love if you can, and keep telling the world where to get off, you’re not too old,
i remember reading a story about one of the oldest men in the world, he had out-lived all of his family, his children, even his grandchildren, how painful that must have been for him, and how sad and lonely he must feel, for that reason i always felt that the last line of your song ”Hope” should be ”with everyone i knew…”, if i am going to live forever it would be nice if some of my friends and family are there too,
i was trying to tell a little girl how i would have to go down to a big red box at the end of the street to make a phone call, and often have to wait in line to use it, she wondered why i didn’t just send a text or e-mail instead, imagine a scenario where i out live her and i’m trying to tell that to another little girl, who has never heard of the Beatles either, it would just get harder and harder to tell the story,
so yes if i am going to live forever it would be good to have at least one good friend to make that journey with me, even if it’s only to confirm to that strange alien generation of the future that i’m not just talking a load of Bullshit,
many happy returns Roy, xx