Sitting here preparing CDRs for tonight’s DJ stint at the Last Tuesday Society’s Masked Ball, in the heart of the West End. Even at 8pm in comparatively sleepy Highgate, the New Year’s Noise has started outside. The increased banging of car doors, shouts in the street, vehicles careering too fast in side streets, parties to get to, parties to get from. Where’s the party? Everywhere.
So I’ve plunged myself into the core of it all – DJ-ing from 1am to 3am at the Arts Theatre, near Leicester Square.
Trying to decide which version of ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’ to play. The Monroe original is too stop-starty, and isn’t quite as danceable as one might think. There’s a recent remix which splices Marilyn’s vocals with a modern swing arrangement, which I’m toying with. But then there’s Nicole Kidman’s version from Moulin Rouge, which is certainly full of rhythm (and which I suspect the Monroe remix is trying to ape). Possibly goes a little far in the giddy sweetshop direction. On New Year’s Eve, though, giddiness is rather the point.
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New Year’s Resolution: never write in the diary about something which hasn’t happened yet. It can tempt fate.
Earlier this year, there was my being collared by a woman who wanted me to model suits for Paul Smith. I gave her my details, but did she get in touch? Did she Prada.
More recently, I mentioned here that the Guardian Guide emailed me, asking for a few words about my ideal ‘Midnight Track’ for their NYE club listings. They also wanted them by the next day. I duly replied at once. They said thanks.
Bought the Guide yesterday, only to see my bit wasn’t used after all. Oh well.
Here’s what I wrote:
BUGSY MALONE (Original Movie Soundtrack): You Give A Little Love / Finale
A dissonant piano chord rings out and the party noise stops. Then a simple, childlike vaudeville riff gingerly nudges the song to life, and songwriter Paul Williams (voicing the male cast of the 1975 childrens’ film Bugsy Malone) offers a wounded but triumphant melody of hope: ‘We could have been anything that we wanted to be / You give a little love and it all comes back to you….’ It’s the end of the movie, the end of the big custard pie fight, it’s charming and winning, it’s the styles of the 1920s via the kids of the 1970s, and it’s as powerful as ever. What better song to mark the passing of Father Time than this jaunty and defiant celebration of the child-adult axis in life? And you can dance to it.
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Still, my mum is elsewhere in the same Saturday Guardian, in the New Year’s Honours List. I note that the Guardian goes with ‘quilt maker’, while the Times prefers ‘quiltmaker’.
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Thank you, Dear Reader, for granting me your attention in 2007. See you in 2008. Take care. Don’t talk to any strange men. Do talk to a few strange hermaphrodites, though. At least you know where you are with them.
