Number 2

Barbados

Typically Tropical

Imagine a kid used to living in a warm easy climate surrounded by friends of all colours and without any awareness of racism being transported to the bleak wet west country of the 1970s. The children in my new school actually asked me if we’d lived in mud huts in Kenya, such was the insular nature of British country life in those days. So then, imagine this song with the glorious voice of Captain Tobias Willcock welcoming passengers aboard Coconut Airways with the promise of landing in Bridgetown Barbados where the “weather is fine with a maximum temperature of 90 degrees Farenheit.”

I decided that any song I liked that came into my head could be a candidate for my blog, so no apologies for this slightly cheesy classic. I do really love this song. I spent six and a half years of my young life in Kenya, and although it is the other side of the world from Barbados, there is something about this tune that has always made me feel nostalgic for that life, its warmth, freedom and happiness. For me as a kid, Kenya was paradise on earth.

Released in 1975, two years after our return from Kenya, Barbados was part of my early music education. In those long ago days, it wasn’t always a given that kids would be introduced to music on the radio from babyhood. It wasn’t the first song that entered my consciousness, but it was among the first that was able to affect my mood.

Far away from London town and the rain
It's really very nice to be home again
Mary Jane met the Coconut Airplane
Now I know she loves me so

There is nothing very clever about the lyrics, but they are singalong simple and fun enough. I love the synth hook and I like the sound of the aircraft too with the authentic muffled radio voice of the captain. Back then, I could see Barbados in my mind’s eye, and I liked what I saw. Now when this song comes on the radio, I sing along and often there’s a tear in my eye, remembering that little lost girl and the lovely life she’d left behind. There’s a sense of lost innocence and sadness too. But, if it makes me sad, it makes me happy too.

Barbados

I haven’t got any recommendations for other versions, although there is another, so this week I thought I’d add a WOW song. Last weekend I was listening to Dermot O’Leary talking to Cher about her appearance in Cats. He was really bigging up her version of Memory and I was thinking, well he would, they’re clearly good friends. Anyway, then he played it. WOW! For the first time I could see a cat, not people dressed in cat costumes. I felt the sadness and nostalgia and could see the gloomy dark London streets. The power and emotion in her voice was astounding. I like Cher but not that much, but I loved this. It was definitely a sit-in-the-car until-it’s-finished song. I’ve just looked her up and she loves cats, so maybe that’s half the secret. Find it and listen.