Soundtrack Of My Life: First Love

By Kit Calder-White

Nick Blackwell is on a quest to discover how his life brought him to where he finds himself: International music producer, DJ, Author, loving husband and father.
A settled life of sorts.
But it wasn ́t always like that.
As Nick reflects on his past we begin the Soundtrack Of My Life series with First Love and Nick as an insecure teenager, trying to discover who he is and where he fits. He soon discovers that affairs of the heart can be troublesome yet powerfully uplifting as he experiences in the pursuit of his first love, Rebecca. All the while, as Nick tries to figure out where his future lies, through family, friends and acquaintances, he is introduced to new music and new life experiences which help shape the direction he will ultimately take.
Set in Australia in the 1980 ́s, Soundtrack Of My Life: First Love is a nostalgic celebration of the music we listen to, the people we meet and the life experiences we share along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kit Calder-White
• Release date: Apr 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005849924

Book preview

Soundtrack

Of

My life

Volume 1

First Love

Kit Calder-White

Soundtrack Of My Life

Volume1: First love

Published by Chris White

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2021 Chris White

All rights reserved.

ISBN:

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

Foreword

Music is something that abounds in our daily lives and is often part of the many experiences we remember and cherish. I hope this book inspires you to relive the music of the 80’s or discover bands and music you may have never heard before so as to provide you with new experiences, as well as to support their music, particularly at this time where music has provided many of us with the life force we have so desperately needed.

Many thanks for choosing my book

Kit Calder-White

Contents

Prologue

Primary

Rebecca

Kiss

Rejection

This is England

Another Brick In The Wall

Tommy

Oh! Carol

Street Fighting Man

Music life

Come Back

The System

My Girl

Imagine

When You See A Chance

Truth Hits Everybody

You Make Lovin’ fun

We Are The Champions

Femme Fatale

New Romantics

Darkness

Rock and Roll Band

I Don’t Like Cricket, I Love It

Somebody Told Me

Who’s That Girl

It’s A Grand Old Flag

Love Song

Fairground Attraction

Breaking Us In Two

Change

Whenever I Fall

Communication

The Scientist

Cattle and Cane

Down Under

Don’t Change

Bloc Bloc Bloc

Girlfriend

Love will Tear Us Apart

The Hurting

End of The Road

Acknowledgements

About The Author

The Soundtrack

Prologue

The number one single on the music charts the day I was born, greatly depends on which country you wish to refer to. In the USA, the number one single was My Love by the British born singer Petula Clark, which along with her single Downtown, made her the first British female singer to have two US number ones. In the UK it was Michelle by The Overlanders, the band’s only number one hit and essentially a cover of the Beatles classic. In Australia, the place of my birth, the number one single on that day was the double A side single We Can Work It Out/ Day Tripper by The Beatles, which spent seven weeks at number one. What makes We Can Work It Out special is it is a rare example of a Lennon-McCartney collaboration from this period. The song was a worldwide success reaching the number one chart position in many countries across the globe.

My Spanish friends tell me I have a flor en el culo, which is an expression that means I am a lucky bastard. Maybe they are right. That luck stems from the very day, the very moment of my birth. You see I was born seven weeks premature which in the mid-sixties was an extremely life-threatening situation. The doctors were so worried about my chances of survival that they recommended to my parents that a priest be called, and I had the last rights read over me, as I lay helpless in a humidicrib. I can’t imagine what stress and anguish my parents went through as they watched helplessly as this tiny creature, their first-born child, fight for a life that may only last a few hours, a few days or even just a few weeks. Whether you believe in a god or not, a miracle happened sometime after the last rights were read over me and I not only was able to survive those perilous first moments of life, but grow stronger so that a short time later I went home with my parents as most new-borns do.

On the surface it would have appeared to the casual observer, that my entry into this world was as normal as can be, quite unremarkable.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

I was born into a musical household, although it must be said that my father is the music aficionado while my mother appreciates music. My father is a highly skilled pianist and as a university student, played in a band that specialised in wedding gigs playing everything from swing to rock and roll, waltzes to jazz. Dad will often put on music to listen to and just sit back in the lounge room for hours. His musical taste, like mine, is very eclectic and he is just as likely to listen to Madonna as he is to Mozart, depending on whatever mood takes his fancy. Not a day goes by without my father listening to music. He is also well known in the family for making up songs about his children and shamelessly singing them no matter how embarrassing they may be for the specific child it is intended for. Some of Dad’s well-known hits include:

Down To The Potty,

Timmy Go Nigh Nighs, and Oh Lovely Broccoli

Dad is always singing or whistling to himself and often turns a mundane task into a song.

We are sweep, sweep sweeping…

Clean the bath, scrub it clean, wash it down, make it gleam…

Which as a child, I found entertaining and fun.

But as a teenager, it was just cheesy.

Unfortunately, it is a habit I have inevitably picked up from my father and I am well known at home with my family and amongst my work colleagues for making up songs about them and the work we are doing. For my family I have always seen it as part of my fun dad persona. But I have never really stopped to think how annoying it must be for my work colleagues.

I come from a large catholic family of seven children. My mother, Grace Blackwell, worked full time as a geography teacher and somehow managed to bring up seven children while working full time, which was no mean feat. My father, Graham, until his retirement, was a professor at Edith Cowan University for many years, where he taught English and drama rising to become head of the department in the latter years of his tenure there.

But his real love is music.

My earliest memories are of Dad putting on music in the living room and dancing and singing along to it dragging us all into his moment of fun.

Now in my early fifties and with three children of my own, I have made every effort to maintain the love of music instilled in me by my father. Both my sons love music and play an instrument. Chet, who is fifteen and named after the famous Jazz trumpeter Chet Baker, is an accomplished drummer and Robert, who is twelve and named after Robert Smith, front man for The Cure, plays guitar. My daughter Melody, who is seven, has just started learning piano. Since the boys were young, we have always played and sung music in the house. My wife and I decided even before Chet was born, that TV would be something the children would watch every now and then for only limited periods at a time. The focus was on creativity, quality family time and helping the kids develop important skills such as reading, writing, arithmetic and ball skills.

Since I often travel for work, my wife took on the role of full-time house mum in those early years, which as you can imagine was not easy considering our child interactive policy. In recent years, it has been me who has become the house dad and my wife has returned to work as a nurse in the local hospital on a part time basis. However, we have remained true to our policy and it has brought great dividends. All the kids are doing well at school. My wife and I have spent hours and hours reading with the kids, drawing, learning times tables and playing various sports including football, cricket and basketball. In the summer we go to the beach every morning, very early around 5am and all three of our kids surf, having been taught by one of my best friends Tiger, who is an excellent surfer. But the thing we have spent the most time doing together as a family, is enjoy music.

There is ALWAYS music on at our house.

I habitually have it on in the car, which has varied over the years from the children’s songs we would sing along to with the kids, to bands like Fleetwood Mac and R.E.M to the music my kids choose to listen to now, which for Melody is Dua Lipa and Beyonce, Robert has just discovered Cold play and Chet is going through a Death Metal phase which will hopefully soon pass. My poor wife tolerates it out of a sense of being fair for a couple of songs, then, at first opportunity, she changes the music to something a lot more palatable.

The special moments however, are when we get together and play music as a family. My wife is an exceptionally good piano player and guitarist, but for several years didn’t play at all. She tells me things got in the way but I believe her disastrous relationship with her ex-husband sucked all the confidence joy and positivity from her soul and made her feel that playing music was a frivolous past time. I know her ex feels that way.

We never forced playing music on the kids. It was just a natural progression from them dancing and singing along with our playing. Chet began to show interest in playing the drums at a young age and after some rudimentary lessons from me on a toy drum kit I bought him when he was five, he soon progressed to having the odd lesson with my youngest brother Mark, who is an extremely talented drummer, on a full drum kit. Most of what he knows he taught himself after many hours banging away in his room much to the chagrin of the neighbours. In fact, such was the animosity that developed with the neighbours, that when Robert started to play electric guitar and they called the EPA on us, we decided to move to a new house rather than deny the kids their passion. We now play regularly together as a family and have developed a large repertoire of songs both old and new and when Melody is a little older, I’d like us to perform together as a family.

But that is something for the future.

The first song I remember that really made an impression on me was 10CC ‘s I’m Not In Love. It was late at night as my father drove the family on one of our annual holiday trips down the south west coast of Australia to the small coastal town of Augusta that I first heard the song. The darkness was profound with only the shadows of the trees lurking behind the spotlights of Dad’s brown Ford Falcon 500 station wagon and the odd star twinkling in the sky to keep Dad and I company as everyone else was fast asleep. Dad had the radio on and the two of us listened in silence to 10CC’s masterpiece with its mystical beauty of the backing track of 624 voices harmoniously providing an eerily, soothing ambience to the quiet darkness that surrounded us. A special moment made even more so by a very unique and special song.

The first single I ever bought was Jump In My Car by the Ted Mulray gang. I remember proudly taking the single to school to show my friends and asking my fifth-grade teacher, Mr Joyce, if we could play it on the school record player during one lunch break to which he agreed. My friends really loved the band and they particularly enjoyed singing the girls voice in the song as we sat around listening to it while playing Top Trumps, an extremely popular card game at the time amongst my classmates in grade five.

The first album I bought was Arrival by Swedish band ABBA. Being the first album in the house that was not owned by my father, it had special significance and my father made a space in his record cabinet specifically for my new acquisition. I was so proud of my purchase that I had saved up my pocket money to buy and I listened to that album non-stop from start to finish constantly. The album had several successful singles in Australia namely Knowing me, Knowing you, Money, Money, Money, Dancing Queen, and Fernando which spent 14 weeks at number one on the Australian music charts. However, I found myself growing to love other tracks like Kiss The Teacher and Dum Dum Diddle, which made the listening experience that much more enjoyable.

Jake had a crush on Frida from the band and I fancied Agnetha with her stereotypical Swedish blonde locks. Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson are two of the greatest songwriters the world has known, and they paved the way for many other extremely successful songwriters and artists from their small country in Scandinavia. At the time I knew little about Sweden apart from the fact it was a cold place with lots of snow. Little did I know that many years later I would develop a strong bond with the country and its people.

Arrival reached number one on the Australian music charts and was a worldwide huge selling album. Dancing Queen is now a favourite amongst commercial DJ’s and the song still fills dance floors around the world some 40 years later.

The first concert I went to was KISS at the Perth Entertainment centre, which was their first ever concert in Australia and part of their 1980 Unmasked tour. My three best friends and I dressed up in costumes and make up, with my friend Tiger going as Peter Criss, (even though he had recently been replaced by Eric Carr), Mike went as Paul Stanley, Jake dressed up as Gene Simmons and I went as Ace Frehley. Our costumes were kind of naff, our make-up ran, and we got it all over ourselves, but we loved every minute of it.

The first musical I went to see was the film Grease. My best friend Jake and I decided to take an unscheduled day off school and passing by a movie theatre, chose to go and see the movie purely as there was nothing else showing that grabbed our interest. Both of us immediately loved the vibrant soundtrack and obsessed over Olivia Newton John, while aspiring to be as cool as Danny, without really understanding much about the concept. I actually couldn’t stand movie musicals at the time having been brought up on a feast of Saturday TV matinee movies from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s with actors like Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Doris Day, Gene Kelly and in particular Esther Williams, who seemed to always find a moment where she could swim to music. I found the music and singing annoying and often totally unnecessary to the story. My father, however, was very much into musicals and we listened a lot as children to the Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Tommy, Godspell, and The Sound Of Music soundtracks, to name just a few. I have a fond memory of my father singing If I Was A Rich Man from Fiddler On The Roof in his best Hebrew accent, chasing us around the living room. It became such a regular game at our house that we inevitably learned the words through sheer repetition.

Our house was a musical house all because of my father’s passion for music.

My wife also shares this passion. It is one of the reasons I married her. She grew up in a different situation where neither of her parents were music enthusiasts and so the family home was never filled with the life, exuberance and joy that my parents’ house was, or like our house is today. Her music interest was developed through her grandparents on her mother’s side during many an afternoon after school spent at their house. Her grandmother loved classical music and dancing and they would often while away the afternoon together doing famous ballroom dances such as the Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Bossa Nova and Jive. Sometimes her grandfather would join in and for my wife, these were the most special moments, seeing how much music inspired her grandparents and how much in love they still were after all those years.

Her grandfather loved Jazz and was an accomplished piano player. Occasionally, they would sit around the piano while he would play such classics as Minnie The Moocher by Cab Calloway and It Don't Mean A Thing (If it ain’t got that swing) by Ella Fitzgerald. The time would often pass by quickly and soon my wife’s mother or father would be at the door to pick her up all too soon. When her grandfather passed away, my wife was extremely sad, as she knew what suffering it caused her grandmother.

A few weeks later, her grandmother, who was in perfect health, died suddenly in her sleep. To this day we believe that she decided that she just didn’t want to go on living in a world without the joy, support and love she received from her husband.

One thing is for certain. I am a music addict. So is my wife, though she would deny it if you asked her. I have been known to lose all sense of time and space while sitting in a bar talking to friends when suddenly a song I know and love comes on, or a tune that I have never heard before captures my attention. If it’s a song I know, I will go as far as losing interest in whatever is going on around me (with some exceptions) and even become frustrated if someone tries to distract me from my listening pleasure or the song is truncated for some reason by an advert, an announcement (like at a wedding) or an overzealous DJ. In the case of a song I have never heard before, these days it is much easier. My favourite app in the universe is Shazam and it has certainly saved the day and prevented embarrassing or stressful situations as in days gone by. Long ago, before the invention of the smart phone, many a night was jeopardised by the fact a DJ in a club or on the radio played a song that seduced me immediately and without any other recourse, I was forced to confront said club DJ or insist everyone in the car shut up so I could hear what the song was called and who it was by. Lo and behold should someone speak as the DJ announced that vital information or neglected to mention it, instead cutting to an advert, or dribbling on about some girl in Manchester who is dedicating the next song to her crew because it’s her eighteenth birthday and tonight they are going out on the town.

I have been known to lose it.

I’ve even tried in vain to sing the song (if I can remember any of the lyrics) over and over in my head in the often over optimistic hope that a friend or the guy at the record store would immediately know the tune. If by chance the stars align and I discover the all-important data, I have been known to play that song on repeat once I get my hands on it, over and over and over again, 10, 20, 30 times in a row, just to enjoy that hit, that rush, that feeling one more time, often to the annoyance of my wife and some of my friends. I say some, because not all my friends are averse to a song being played on repeat at the risk of wearing it out.

My good friend Erik and I one Christmas, played I’m Coming Home by Romeo and I Want It That Way by The Back-Street Boys until our fingers bled from pressing repeat on the CD player. That was my first Swedish Christmas, my first real time getting to know Erik and his family, and that music and those moments helped bond us to know end. Erik is a music addict too

What rush that music provides you with, whether it be an upper like a track you listen to before you go out, put on your gym play list, or to ease the pain of doing household chores or a downer where it shares in your suffering, depends on your needs and whatever gets you high. I know my sister, on breaking up with her boyfriend, played Better Man by Pearl Jam on repeat to help ease her pain, but whether that was used as a stimulant to give her the power to move on, or a depressant to drown her sorrows is up for debate and only she really knows the answer. Whatever it was, she found what she needed in constantly taking a hit of that song.

Music addiction can bring incredible highs like the time I spent 250 euros on a Bruno Mars ticket and had one of my greatest all-time concert experiences. Yet its consequences can bring incredible lows because as a result of my capricho, I couldn’t buy food for the following week due to an unexpected huge phone bill then wiping me out of whatever money I had left in my account

Music addiction is a thing believe me And it’s incredibly potent.

My music collection is extremely large and extensive. However, under no circumstances would I claim to be a music expert, nor is my knowledge that profound. This musical amassment is the result of the many people I have met and the life experiences I have encountered along this incredible life journey and therein lies the real story.

My whole being is the sum total of those family, friends, lovers, teachers, bosses, colleagues, etc, the associated life moments and the music that accompanied those people and those moments in time, no matter how brief or short lived they were. Music has helped define me and it certainly is a huge part of who I was, who I am now and who I will be in the future.

My name?

Nick Blackwell or "Nicky’ to my friends.

This is my story.

Soundtrack Of My Life.

Primary

We are products of the time we grew up in, the events that happened, the cultural, socio economic situation we lived in, the way we were raised, the education we received, the friends we made, clothes and fashion we wore, movies we saw, the beliefs and attitudes of the time and of course the music we listened to.

A girlfriend I had in the early 90’s, as a birthday present, once gave me a session to see a psychic. It was just before I was about to set off on a solo trip to America for the second time and she believed I might receive some guidance from this soothsayer. I didn’t really believe in fortune tellers during that period in my life and was cynical about the whole experience. However, I always remember how the psychic described me at the time.

You look like your mother, but you are becoming more like your father in personality every day.

To some degree she was right. I have my mother’s distinctive large clear blue eyes, her roman nose and her thin mouth. However, my dark brown hair is thick and wavy, not thick and straight like my mother’s and my pixie shaped ears, come from my father. I also had for many years his slim build, which is a Blackwell genetic trait. However, I have developed a stronger physique as I have got older, while let’s just say my father has kind of let it slide, just a little.

I have been told on many occasions that I look like:

*Dave Faulkner, (the lead singer of the Australian band Hoodoo Gurus)

*Jesus (When I had long hair and a beard).

*I am French.

* On one occasion like George Michael, (which I think has something to do with my thick eyebrows more than anything else) and even Justin Timberlake, (although that was definitely because a girl was trying to flatter me while I was performing as a DJ, in order to get me to play a song she wanted to hear.)

As for my personality, I have my father’s very larger than life sense of humour, his sense of fun and his love of telling stories. I also share his empathy, generosity, positivity and his openness when it comes to discussing problems. But my curiosity about life, my sensitivity, my love of travel, learning about new cultures and languages comes from my mother. I am truly the definitive result of the two of them combined, both in my good qualities and bad qualities alike.

I have always been a relaxed simple guy, or at least I would like to think so. I’m a, jeans and t-shirt kind of guy, rather than a suit and tie man. I’m just as happy having a pint in a working man’s pub, as I am drinking a cocktail in a fancy cocktail bar and I eat pizza more than I go to eat in nice restaurants. Pubs are way better than nightclubs, however there was a period in my life due to circumstance where I frequented clubs regularly. I enjoy most sports, particularly when a team from Australia is involved as in the Olympics, or a rugby or cricket international. In fact, it is more accurate to say sport is all I watch on TV. I’m very physically active for a 54-year-old (although I’m hardly an Adonis) and have run marathons, regularly go to the gym and love a round of golf with my friends (though calling me a ‘hacker’ is too polite a term.)

I still look fairly young for my age which is partly due to fortunate genes and partly all the physical activity I enforce on my body often after a night out on the booze, which is something I still do every now and then. Before my wife finally managed to tie me down, it was not uncommon for me to enjoy romantic trysts with women much younger than I was. These lasted often until the parents met me or one of her friends found out how old I was and then suddenly I was made to feel like a dirty old man and the relationship was over before it had really begun.

One morning, after a one-night stand with a girl who was considerably much younger than I was and who I had picked up in a night club I had just performed a DJ set in, I was getting dressed while she lay passed out on the bed in her bedroom, when I noticed that the pictures of her and her father located all around her apartment were awfully familiar. There was an initial sense of horror and embarrassment and then a quick exit out the door, as soon as I realised that I had just slept with an old friend’s daughter. Needless to say I retreated from that awkward scenario and did my best to keep that under wraps until the girl in question, while visiting her parents, recognised me looking through some old photos with her father one evening. The cat was then let out of the bag and I received a very harrowing phone call.

Boy did I have some explaining to do.

So yes, I am a Peter Pan type, young at heart, I have never really grown up and still enjoy a lot of things kids do, even well into middle age. It is something that over the years has affected many aspects of my life, both in a positive and negative way.

My best friend, Jake Watkins and I have been friends since we were three years old. My parents, shortly after having their second child, decided to move to a bigger house and bought a house in Gayton road in the suburb of City Beach, a middle-class area in the western suburbs of Perth. The house was one of several houses built in the area, specifically to accommodate some of the athletes who competed at the Commonwealth Games, which were held in Perth in 1962. It was an ideal house, located in the perfect location to raise a family, surrounded by parks, native bush land, a golf course and the nearest beach, City beach, was walking distance away. My parents won the house in an auction and my father often tells the story how they were searching their pockets for every last cent as the bidding reached their budget limit of £6,700. Luckily, no one outbid their offer and they won the auction.

The single storey house, made of salmon brick with an asbestos skillion roof, initially was a three-bedroom house, situated on a 1,000sq feet block, but as the family grew, extensions were undertaken and by the time I left home, the house had grown to have five bedrooms, a study, two bathrooms with an ensuite bathroom in the master bedroom, a large lounge room, playroom and an extra toilet, very necessary in a large household. Like most houses in Perth at the time, we had a reasonable size backyard and a front yard that had an additional grass verge in the front of the house, which was technically owned by Perth City council. For the Blackwell family, that verge became an auxiliary play area in addition to the front and back gardens and it wasn’t uncommon to play any multitude of games with other children in the street on that verge.

Jake’s family, until they moved to a new house after Jake’s younger sister Sara was born in 1973, initially lived two doors down from our house and very quickly our parents became friends having recently moved into the area themselves. His mother and father both came to Australia with their respective families as part of the post world war two immigration program from