The Ned Wood Archive

What’s That Sound?  Where is it Coming From?

Friends, Trickies, Vinyl Addicts.  This is it.  I told you I’d do this one day.  I finally got around to writing a History of the English Speaking Musicians.  The story of popular music in the second half of the twentieth century through the eyes of one of its biggest junkies.  

But I got carried away and added a bit of other stuff.  A lot of other stuff.  Well, actually, everything.  Everything that really matters.  Music, football, clothes, girls.  They’re all mixed up.  Just like a window needs a pane, just like a highway leads to Maine (if not Maine Road) they’re all in this together.  Just as music comes in waves, so does the beautiful game.  And, not so strangely perhaps, the highs in one coincide with the highs in another.  Take 1966-67.  What a season that was – the Trickies’ best ever position in the league at the time.  (Were we called the Tricky Trees then?)  Long FA Cup run.  And Otis Blue as well.  Yeah, but we were all too young to know it at the time.

This’ll take a long time.  We’ll make a whole set of these and give them a name like the West Bridgford Chronicles, or a Dance to the Music of the Time, or the Socialist’s and Capitalist’s Guide to Intelligent Women, or the Legend of Dexy’s.  We’ll have to keep going until we win the cup again.

And maybe when you get done with all of this, you’ll understand.

And, for reasons that I may explain, we’ll have a hero.  Sometimes he’ll be called Norman Cross.  Sometimes we’ll call him Gary Badly.  Mostly will call him Ned.  Ned Wood.  Ned E. Wood.  e. e. wood.  His Mam called him Edward after some king or something.  His Dad called him Endersby after his own Mam.  His mates call him Ned or Eddie or Crazy Eddie.  He called himself Riff partly after the guy in West Side Story and partly after an album by Andy Mackay.  And sometimes he’ll be me.  And then again maybe not.

And there’ll be a gal. Or two.  And sometimes she’ll be Brigit Fonda, or Natasha Richardson, or Melanie Neef, or whoever else I’ve got a crush on at the time.  But mostly she’ll be the missis.

And we’ll start in 1976.  It wasn’t such a special year when it started, but we were both at that age when we were starting to find out about the world.  Maybe we were even beginning to realise we could do something about the way we lived our lives in it.

When it started it was a time of Abba and flares, of wing collars and smiley faces, of Sutherland Brothers and Quiver. Disco was big and, apart from War’s Low Rider and LaBelle’s Voulez-vous, you couldn’t really dance to it.  Even the Rolling Stones joined the Fatback Band.  I was listening to Rod Stewart and the Faces,  old sixties stuff like the Kinks and the Yardbirds, my old Roxy and Bowie albums, and trying to find new music to dig but only buying old junk like the Moody Blues and Lindisfarne.  It was a hot summer, long and hot, and Julie got a copy of Jailbreak which we listened to round at her place all day.  All through what was left of July, all of August, and finally through September as it slipped away towards autumn, as the holiday slipped away towards University.  We listened to The Boys are Back in Town, Jailbreak, but best of all we listened to Emerald: Julie, Alex, Harry, my brother, and me.

And then term started and I met Mary.  

When I think about Mary, I think about her hair.  Dark deep black hair that shone blue when it caught the light.  Hair long and soft that you could settle down and relax in.  Hair you could swim in.  Hair you would get lost in.  Hair so black it would shine in a darkened room.  Hair so bright it was like deep space on a moonless night.  Space so deep you would disappear in it and never come back.

When I think about Mary, I think about her accent.  A sharp Cheshire accent, always clipped and northern to my ears, yet gentle and friendly.  An accent that could never really be angry at you, but always mocked.  An accent that caressed you as it cursed you.  An accent with an impish laugh and a wicked smile.  An accent that would cut you to the bone yet leave you just a little unsure whether you were being beaten or really just being teased.

When I think about Mary, I think about sitting in her room.  Me leaning against the wall watching her as she ribbed her friends.  As she argued and debated.  Or as she crusaded on behalf of her class and her beliefs.  There’d always be a small crowd, three, maybe four folk hanging around arguing, debating, tossing ideas back and forth.  What was Socialism?  What should be done about the Grant?  What was wrong in Chile?  What on earth are we on Earth for?  And I’d sit there and listen to the debate moving backwards and forwards, most of it above my head.  Afterwards she’d say, “You were quiet this evening” and I’d answer, “I just enjoy listening” and she’d laugh like a dig in the ribs and say “No – it’s because you’ve got nothing to say”.  And she was right.

When I think about Mary, I think about the time she allowed me the honour of a kiss.  It was the week before Christmas and we’d both been to some party or other.  It ended with a debate in her room, and as usual I managed to be the last to leave.  “Well Happy Christmas” she said moving toward me, her hair catching all the dim lights shining through the window like tinsel on a Christmas tree.  She caught me around the waist and as the extent of my good fortune dawned on me our lips met and I sank deep into her blackness.  It was a kiss as long as the ocean, as endless as the midnight sky, as gentle as sleep, as soft as fire.  I floated on her lips like a raven on the wing, like a manta ray on an ocean current.  I felt as if I’d finally returned to a cosseted warm home I’d left years before and been welcomed back to without reproach.  I felt as if, this time, Mary was really mine.

Oh, by the way, her real name is Maggie Cassidy.