Today we found out who had won awards at this year’s Grammy Awards. The ceremony would have taken place last night but with the time difference, it’s always the next day until you find out who won. Not a big deal in my life nowadays I have to say, but part of awards season so always interesting to see if any of our home-grown British acts did well. As usual we did, with Ed Sheeran coming away with two awards.
I am really conscious of the fact that since starting this blog, I have (except for last year’s Eurovision winner) not written about any songs post 1994. I suspected this might happen early on as it seems that once you pass your late 30s, the shutters go up and your brain wants to let you know that there’s enough in there already – No room for new songs! We buy the greatest hits albums of the artists we enjoyed in our youth, we buy soundtrack albums, ones advertised on television and of course have to continually re-purchase all our old material but in a different format. I was of the generation that bought everything originally on vinyl and cassette tape then had to collect it all again in CD format and now digitally – Good for the arists I imagine as they keep on collecting those royalties every time the medium of choice changes, but it means a lot of us are perhaps not investigating enough of what is new out there.
Also, it doesn’t help that the radio stations I listen to primarily play older music so unless something is really mainstream and award-winning, I’m not experiencing it any more. My daughter’s music collection features, in the main, people I have never heard of but that would have been the case for my parents and the music I loved in the 1970s. Probably being really uncool here but if I never hear another Kanye West track, my life will be the better for it – Sorry but just don’t get him.
But back to Mr Sheeran and his awards. One was for Thinking Out Loud which won Song of the Year. Now this is indeed a great song (although I am perplexed about what happens when he gets to 71) but I think I want to write about the one that first brought him to our attention – The A Team. It became a big breakthrough hit for him in the summer of 2011 when Ed was aged just 20 and although a great sounding song to listen to, it had a really dark theme about the world of drugs and prostitution.
The A Team by Ed Sheeran:
I can hardly believe that Ed was only 18 when he wrote it after performing at a homeless shelter. He admitted later that he had been naïve about the problems faced by some of the young people he met there, as I would have been at his age, so really quite brave of him to tackle writing such a song. Made a lot of us sit up and think however – A few bad breaks in life and not easy to get out of that downward spiral. Ed has carried on raising money for charities that help young people who find themselves in a desperate situation, like the girl in the song. Hopefully his success will have the beneficial effect of helping many others too – Good karma.
Over the last few years we seem to have produced a lot of very successful singer/songwriters who do especially well at the Grammys. Last year it was Sam Smith and before that we had Adele and of course the late, great Amy Winehouse. Whenever they get up to receive their awards, I suddenly feel really nervous for them and just hope and pray that their little thank you speech is filled with nothing too rude, rebelious or controversial. Yes, I am at the age that I think of them as my children and want them to give a good account of themselves. No pressure then – It’s not enough that they have won one of the biggest prizes in the global music industry, they have to make us proud of their social skills as well. No problem with Mr Sheeran as he always comes across as a fine young man with a lovely speaking voice but there is a part of me that would just love to give his hair a good tidy, and his clothes a thorough iron before he steps out to collect his award.
And there we have it – the main reason I find it hard to write about recent songs is that I am now emotionally attached to these young artists in a maternal way with the days of teen idolatry far behind me. You can never feel the same way about songs in later life as you did in your youth (especially if you are a girl) because those hormones are just no longer there (literally) and if you have moved onto a happy marriage and family life, there will be no “last dance songs”, “break-up songs” or “new-found-love songs” to torture the soul. Thank goodness as I don’t think I could go through all that again, but it does explain why, in the main, I will probably be writing about songs from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s!
Congratulations to Ed – A worthy winner.
The A Team Lyrics
(Song by Ed Sheeran)
White lips, pale face
Breathing in snowflakes
Burnt lungs, sour taste
Light’s gone, day’s end
Struggling to pay rent
Long nights, strange men
And they say
She’s in the Class A Team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since eighteen
But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries
And they scream
The worst things in life come free to us
Cause we’re just under the upper hand
And go mad for a couple grams
And she don’t want to go outside tonight
And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland
And sells love to another man
It’s too cold outside
For angels to fly
Angels to fly
Ripped gloves, rain coat
Tried to swim and stay afloat
Dry house, wet clothes
Loose change, bank notes
Weary-eyed, dry throat
Call girl, no phone
An angel will die
Covered in white
Closed eyed
And hoping for a better life
This time, we’ll fade out tonight
Straight down the line
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