Thinking yesterday about my first crush (Davy Jones) inevitably led me to think of my second big crush, David Cassidy. Thankfully this David is still alive and well although now 65 which would have made him around 21 when he first came into my life in the early ’70s. He starred in The Partridge Family which was shown midweek in the kid’s TV slot just before the early evening news.
It was inevitable because of his amazing good looks and great singing voice that he would become a teen idol. There had been chart hits already with The Partridge Family but in April 1972 David had his first solo hit as himself, and not as Keith Partridge. Could It Be Forever was the perfect vehicle to cement David’s place as one of the two biggest “pop stars” of the day (the other being Donny Osmond but we’ll leave him for another time).
Looking back at the dates now, I realise that this song must have been around during the last few weeks spent at my Scottish primary school. It is also the first song that made me cry – I still remember those tears welling up as I listened to it being played on the radio. Young girls are highly emotional beings and at around 12, just when the hormones are kicking in, we have to leave the familiar surroundings and friendships of our junior school and enter the serious, scary world of secondary school. We end up losing our sanity a bit when it comes to our pop idols and behave in a totally irrational and frenzied manner. We buy all the magazines that have their pictures and create scrapbooks and fanzines. We cover our bedroom walls with their posters. We even iron picture transfers onto our pillowcases. (Yes guilty of all the above.) Of course we dream of them being our fantasy boyfriends, without really understanding what having a real boyfriend would mean.
The really frenzied behaviour however happens if we are ever lucky enough to see them in concert, or in the flesh, and whenever David came to Britain there were hordes of girls at the airport to greet him. It always amazes me when we see old footage of these scenes, that young girls simply headed off to Heathrow en masse unsupervised. We have become a nation who heavily supervises its young people until they are practically at the stage of leaving home – Wasn’t so in the early ’70s obviously. Also, the girls are practically on the tarmac and hanging off every balcony/rooftop vantage point. Compare that to the massive security operation nowadays of getting people shoeless, belt-less and scissor-less through to their plane of choice.
As with most teen idols, David’s time in the sun didn’t last and it was practically all over by 1974. He had become disillusioned with it all by then anyway and who could blame him. It can be a curse to be that good-looking as you are going to have a stratospheric rise to fame but then lose all control of your life in the process. Unless you are incredibly grounded, realistic and well-managed you will find it very hard to cope with life when it’s over. He also suffered the double-whammy of having a fan die in the crush at one of his concerts which he never quite got over. He did attempt a bit of a comeback in the ’80s but it was short-lived. Young girls are very fickle and grow up fast – Once they’ve moved on to “real boys” the career is over.
As for me I will enjoy listening once more to the first song that really made me weep. His second solo single How Can I Be Sure didn’t just make me weep but sob. Yes the hormones and move to “big school” were really kicking in by then. Thank goodness for DC Thomson of Dundee who could be relied upon weekly, to provide plenty of reasonably priced centrefold posters of our idol in Jackie magazine. Hope this David lives a long and healthy life.
Could It Be Forever Lyrics
(Song by Wes Farrell/Danny Janssen)
Could it be forever or is my mind just rambling on
Well I touched you once and I kissed you once
And I feel like you’re mine
Well I feel like you’re mine and I see in your face
I’m not wrong to have these feelings
Well I feel like you’re mine and I’ve never known a time before
That’s had so many meanings
Could it be forever or is my mind just wasting time
Well I don’t think so because you let me know
You make me feel like you’re mine
Well I feel like you’re mine and I can’t remember
When the feelings have been stronger
And all I know is I can’t let go of you
Or be with you just a little while longer
All my feelings come together
All of me is here
Never known when I felt better
Cause I know this won’t disappear
But could it be forever
Or is my mind just rambling on
Maybe it is, if it is
Then I’ll be moving on
Well, I feel like you’re mine
And I see in your face
I’m not wrong to have these feelings
Well, I feel like you’re mine
I’ve never known a time before
That’s had so many meanings
What's It All About? 
Reblogged this on What's It All About? and commented:
Wrote this post early on last year after having written about David Bowie and Davy Jones – I finished off with the sentence, “I hope this David lives a long and happy life”. Sadly I read yesterday that he can no longer tour or perform on stage as he is now suffering from dementia, and he is only 66. Such a cruel disease and with the state pension age now rising exponentially I worry that few of us will ever reach it in good health. Last year we had far too many untimely deaths from the world of music but having discovered that Glen Campbell is now in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s and Linda Ronstadt has Parkinson’s disease and can no longer sing a note, these stories are almost more heart-breaking. Time to dip into the pension pot I think, just in case.
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Ah, your description of young girls is spot on! I also had the same fanaticism about horses for a while. There was an odd transition time when photos of chestnut ponies and centrefolds of Donny Osmond shared bedroom wall space. Then Donny got replaced by Starsky & Hutch, then Starsky & Hutch got replaced by Paul Simonon of the Clash and the rest is history…
My sister was more into David Cassidy than me, as I was a little bit younger – David seemed a bit old! But with the health conditions affecting him and others you mention in your recent new intro, it certainly brings it home how we’re all getting a bit old now….
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I must have been just the right age for David Cassidy but he was soon replaced by the next big thing – Yes I’d forgotten about Starsky and Hutch who were teen idols for a while but my next crush was Bjorn Borg who suddenly adorned my bedroom walls.
Last year they were all dying on us but this year they seem to be getting age-related illnesses (and all of a sudden 66 doesn’t seem that old at all). Whenever I hear that we are all supposed to be putting aside money for our retirement and pension planning like crazy I always ask the question, “Ok but how long do I have to plan for?”. It’s the big unknown so we just don’t know how to plan for it at all – A life of skimping and saving then dementia at 66! Who knows, we might still all be blogging at 90 (if we haven’t run out of things to say by then) if we can still afford the Wi-Fi equivalent and the device to do it on. Could be interesting writing about your teenage crush as a nonagenarian – Would be the equivalent of writing about life in Victorian times to our younger selves. Scary thought!
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