The Miles Davis Quintet - 'Round About Midnight

When I was growing up, working class people would often have a sing-song. In pubs, social clubs, on coach trips...anywhere where people came together to socialise. You don’t see that any more. I guess it was already a remnant of a bygone age when I was a kid. Nowadays, pubs just seem to have some cunt in the corner with an amplified acoustic guitar singing Wonderwall, whilst people look at their phones. If I was on a long coach trip and I tried to get everyone to sing The Lambeth Walk (“Oi!”) with me, they’d put me off at the next stop and call mental health services.

I say this, because Bye Bye Blackbird, was one of the songs that would get sung on such occasions, because everyone knew at least some of the words, and hearing Davis’s ‘first great quintet’, including of course John Coltrane, play this has brought back some memories and made me realise that this kind of social interaction is now all but lost – apart, I suppose, from football matches and churches (Do they still sing in churches or do they have some cunt in the corner with a guitar singing Wondergod?)

The part of the activity which was important, I think, is that everyone did it. It didn't matter if you were young or old, a decent singer or not - the sum was greater than the parts. In fact, if you'd started displaying Mariah Carey-style melisma, you'd have faced the scorn of your peers after a while. It was good-old communist fun.

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