“Just another life to live
Just a word to say
Just another love to give
And a diamond day”
Vashti Bunyan
Last weekend I heard that Herbie Flowers had passed away. I’d come across him a few years ago in an interview on a series on Sky Arts called ‘Classic Albums’. These programmes each delve into a classic album, revisiting the studio, and interviewing the artist, the producer, and session musicians and detailing how some famous songs came into existence. Herbie appeared in Series 3, Episode 4, as a session bass player on Lou Reed’s ‘Transformer’ album, his first solo outing since The Velvet Underground.
I’d watched the programme because I was introduced to Lou Reed, and that album, by a fellow Holy Ghost Novitiate, John O’Connell, when I was 17. My musical taste up until then ranged the whole way from The Police to U2, with a smattering of David Bowie, courtesy of Cyril Boylan, who sold me ‘Changes Two Bowie’ for £5 when I was 15.
John O’Connell left the priesthood before I did, and gave me that tape of Transformer before he left. I wore it out. So I was delighted to come across that programme and watched in awe as Mick Ronson and Bowie chatted over the same mixing desk about how they coaxed Lou Reed into performing and singing. It was a magical programme, which you can still see on Sky, and YouTube. But it was the bit with Herbie Flowers in it that always stuck with me. He came up with the iconic bass intro on ‘Walk On The Wildside’. Herbie chatted matter of factly about turning up listening to David Bowie explain what Lou Redd had just mumbled shyly to him about the song. Herbie suggested playing a string bass and overdubbing an electric bass. Lou Redd loved it and that became the song. Herbie , as a session musician was paid £12 per day, but because he’d played two instruments that day, he got £24. I think he should have got a writing credit. But he seemed happy to have been part of the experience.
He played bass on every song on that album.
He played bass on every song on David Bowie’s ‘David Bowie’ album, sometimes called the ‘Space Oddity’ album because of the single. He played on several albums for Elton John, Paul McCartney, and even joined T-Rex. He played on over 500 Top 10 songs in the 1970’s.
Happy to play his part. To be a part.
I played ‘Walk On The Wildside’ at dinner last Sunday and asked Elliott and Teresa if they’d heard of it.
“No”.
I said it was by Lou Reed.
“ Never heard of him.”
He was in the Velvet Underground.
“Never heard of them.”
The band formed by Andy Warhol.
“ Who ?”
I played the song three times in a row. They’ll never say again that they haven’t heard it. But I guess it shows …actually , I’m not sure what it shows. I was amazed by the Herbie Flowers story, because that album had meant a lot to me, but in trying to retell it, to others, it made little or no impact because they didn’t know the album, or even the artist.
Little things can mean the world to some, and large things can be oblivious to others.
The song ‘Just Another Diamond Day’ was written by Vashti Bunyan in 1970. I don’t know where I first heard it, but it’s always been familiar to me. But in her lifetime it wasn’t a success. She wrote it, released it, and no one played it or seemingly listened to it. She’d written it while travelling in a horse drawn caravan with her partner, heading to Skye in Scotland to join a musical commune formed by Donnovan, ‘Mellow Yellow’, which had disbanded by the time they got there. She gave up on music completely, never even singing to her three children.
And then someone told her that copies of her old album were selling for €4,000 each and people were celebrating this lost folk guru that they’d assumed was dead. The album was re-released and she was inundated by requests from artists who wanted to chat and perform with her.
I think we can coast through our lives not realising that we did, do, or will make an important and positive impact on others, and may never even realise it.
Yesterday I collected Elliott and Teresa from the airport on their return from their Paris adventure. We stopped in Applegreen on the way home and I bumped into Peader McGuinness. I hadn’t seen Peader in years. Many, many moons ago we had been coaches for the mighty Drumkill Rovers Under-8’s football team. Our coaching involved lots of games that had very little to do with a football, and bribery via tiny fun size bags of Haribo.
When I saw Peader standing there in Applegreen and went to shake hands with him, there was a young man standing beside him. As soon as I saw him up close, and after shaking hands with Peader, I said “Dangermouse !”. It was Peader’s youngest son, who was a ferocious wee footballer back in those days, and although only 6, and 2 years younger than all of the others, was our best player. He smiled and shook my hand.
Peader’s older son, Tim , was in the same year as our Elliott, and his daughter Lucy was in the same year as our Robyn. We chatted for a few minutes about where our kids were…Belfast, Dundalk, Edinburgh, Lebanon, and wished each other well. I went off to get myself a coffee and while I was waiting on it I remembered the many twilight evenings in Threemilehouse with Peader running around a pitch, setting out cones, and planning games, anxiously awaiting the 30 under 8’s that would soon descend on us. Peader would never get stressed…or at least would never show it. He’d just smile at me, wish me luck for what was ahead, and then at the end , as we gathered up our cones, and moved the small goalposts back, he’d smile again, and say “We made it!”.
None of those kids went on to play professional football. Under our leadership, I don’t think any of those kids were ever part of a winning team. Sorry. But for an hour each week I like to think that Peader and I gave them the freedom to be themselves. Their glorious, shrieking, wild, carefree, muddy, and happy selves.
Due to the amount of tiny Haribo we dispensed, we may also have given some of them diabetes. Sorry.
I’m so glad that I bumped into Peader yesterday. I needed that smile.
The world needs Herbies, Vashtis, Peaders, and Pauls. Playing a tiny, sometimes inconsequential, but also perhaps crucial part in someone else’s life.
Wishing you all a Diamond Day.
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. For the Herbies, Vashtis, Peaders, and Pauls, this is ‘Just Another Diamond Day’
