Tag: dexys

November 15th – Late in the day, I popped into Birmingham to meet a prospective new cwork colleague, and came back as I often used to frequently, through a somnambulant, night-time Birmingham New Street Station.

The renovations here seem to have finished – although they don’t look it and the Stephenson street footbridge looks like the work stopped abruptly halfway through. But then, there’s only so much polishing and sprinkling with cheap glitter that can mask this huge architectural turd.

The place was charming though in it’s own night-time way, and once again, that late-night feelings vibe started to hit me.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see this post here. 

Why does that haunt me so?

January 22nd – I passed through New Street mid-afternoon. The whole place was grey. It’s still chaos, and has been clearly designed with anything but the passengers in mind.

I stood waiting for a late train. Ever signal I could see was red. Sometimes, commuting feels like this. 

To quote Dexy’s, tell me when my red light turns green.

OK, this is a bit odd, but it’s memories, and stuff like this has a huge influence on the things I create here. Last Wednesday, I noted that I had a love of railway stations at night and that I wasn’t sure where I got it from. I mentioned that in the late 70s there was a record label called ‘Late Night Feelings’, one logo for which featured a drawing of two children on a deserted station at night as an Intercity 125 went past.

This recovered memory has bothered me ever since, so I went searching.

Late Night Feelings was a label peculiar to Geno-era Dexy’s Midnight Runners, an Oldbury band who were hugely influential to me as a youth. The drawing of the station at night was actually on the flip side of the seminal ‘Searching for the Young Soul Rebels’ album, and is as beautiful as I remember; the train is actually an APT or Advanced Passenger Train, a tilting design that was never a success. I think it’s gorgeous and thoroughly encapsulates the period. I spent ages looking at that. I still have no idea why. Sadly, I couldn’t find a better image online.

There were three other crayon draw lables, two of which I’ve never seen before. They all seem to feature the same two blonde children. I’d seen the children in bed, as that was on the 45 of Geno, the massive hit. The other two are new to me, but I adore them, particularly the children looking at the city at night.

It occurs to me that in three of the four images, the children have a suitcase. Why? There’s a story there someone was telling. I find that sad, and a bit tortuous.

I have no idea who drew them, or if this has ever been commented on before, but this artwork was prominent enough to stay in my memory for over three decades, and I do think it’s an odd, curious little influence.

They were certainly a very odd feature for records made by the then infants-terrible of soul-pop.

To the artist: I don’t know who you were, or even if you remember, but I did. Thank you.

Funny how things stay with you.