ENGLISH RAIN (It Takes A Lot To Laugh)

How did I get this title? I was on You Tube intending to play ‘Tom Thumb’s Blues’ when I saw a video for ‘Please Please Me’, which was possibly the first ‘45’ that I bought in 1963. (The other ‘contender’ for ‘First 45’ is ‘Like I’ve Never Been Gone’ by Billy Fury, which was in the charts around the same time.) Anyway, as I was playing ‘Please Please Me’, I noticed a BBC documentary about the making of the album, which I started to watch. Various British musicians had assembled at Abbey Road to play the album in the same order, and the first singer was Gabrielle Aplin. After listening to her start to sing the first song, I looked for an album to listen to – ‘English Rain.’ I’ve forgotten the name of the Beatles’ song she was playing. Is it ‘There’s A Place?’

Now I’m playing ‘English Rain’ as I write, and I liked the title, so I’m using it to inspire me. Is there any difference between English rain and Australian rain? No! Rain is rain, but there is a difference between how the two countries’ weather forecasters interpret ‘rain.’ English weather forecasters tell the truth. If it is going to rain, they say it is going to rain. But in Australia, weather forecasters see a prediction of rain as an affront, particularly at weekends, so whether ‘rain’ means ‘drizzle’ or ‘rain’ means  week-long thunderstorms with flash flooding, they only every refer to it as ‘showers!’  I’ve seen Australian showers change Goodlet Street, outside my window into a flash flood.

I’ve tired of ‘English Rain’ and I’m playing Highway 61 Revisited now, which I’ve never heard before. Actually, this is Antar playing ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ I know ‘Tom Thumb’s Blues’ is on this album. I like playing the different versions of this song sometimes – The Grateful Dead, Bryan Ferry, Nina Simone, Linda Ronstadt – I love this song enough to listen to them all. I’d never heard it until a couple of weeks ago. How did I get to hear it? I think I was playing ‘Colours’ by Donavon, and another version of that song followed, and the singer also did ‘Tom Thumb’s Blues.’ It reminds me of the way I first heard ‘The Girls in Their Summer Clothes’  by Bruce Springsteen, another song that is always playing in my mind. I first heard it in the toilets at the Royal Exhibition Hotel where they have the ‘best’ sound in the pub! I listened for the title and then I Googled it on my phone.

Now Bob Dylan’s ‘It Takes A Lot To Laugh’ is playing (another song I’ve never heard before) and I liked that title so much I’ve added it to ‘English Rain.’ In my nostalgic mind, ‘English Rain’ is a gentle mist over the green fields of my youth. (I don’t think ‘Green fields of my youth “works” but i’ll leave it in there!) I got used to living in England again, learning to accept the long autumn/winter/start of spring, as a fair bargain for end of spring/summer/September. I remember Mum once telling me that she hated the endless ‘grey days’ and I remember too, once waiting outside the terminal at Heathrow for Mum and Dad to pick me up one grey, chill, dank, damp, December morning, and despite long trousers, pullover and jacket, I still shivered. Mind you, once I had bought a duffle coat, scarf, hat, and gloves, I was OK. ‘Long Johns’ worked well too, even under summer weight trousers.

They are all gone now, Mum, Dad, Nana, ‘Sandy’, and they would still be gone if I had stayed in England, but I still feel guilty for splitting the family up. Dave the trailblazer? I have always been the follower. Even Mum called me a ‘spectator’ once. But back in 1978, I came to Australia on my own, and I know I was probably the least prepared migrant in the history of (white) Australia! I’d never lived away from home (apart from three months in Norwich when I was nineteen, but let’s not go there, not now, leave ‘Highway A11 Revisited’ for another day. I like the title, though!)

Perhaps I’m too hard on myself because here I am thirty seven years later, living on my own, mostly happy, mostly coping. I know too that Seamus, Darren, Mark and all the young English/Irish guys I know in the Trinity made the same decision as me. It’s the same for Alex, back in Belgrade to see the rest of her family, and all the other migrants to Australia. Sod the guilt!

Ends.