STEPHEN McGregor's tongue-in-cheek piece about his catholic taste in music (barring, of course, the likes of Arthur the Antelope and the Oscillating Apple Smugglers) reminded me of a car journey I had last winter. My two passengers on that trip to Stranraer to watch Queen of the South beat ''the Clayholers'' sent my blood pressure through the roof.
I was 42 then; so was my navigator, and the chap in the back was 50. My aerial had been destroyed in a drive-through car-wash and the substitute, a bent metal coathanger, did not make for optimum radio reception along the Solway coast. But I really thought that the music I was offering - Respighi, Barber, Vivaldi, and Albinoni - was sublime.
On the other station a beautiful Celtic ballad, outwith the wrist-slashing, Val Doonican sweater category, lit up a grey day in Galloway. When I gave them Bach, my fellow 42-year-old uttered a noun beyond the pale of The Herald. the other said: ''Is that somebody being cremated? Have you any Lynyrd Skynyrd?''
I tried them with Van Morrison. Thumbs down. I tried them with John Martyn. A dirge. They even thought Fine Young Cannibals, U2, and something by a very accomplished fifties American crooner unacceptable melodies to presage a derby football match. ''Have you any Strawbs?'' one said. I tried them with Tampa Red, but it was too dated.
In the glove compartment I howked out a well-worn cassette featuring Black Sabbath (I don't think I had played it for 15 years, and I had to sort it with a Biro pen), and we got on well for the last 20 miles. We are still good pals, but I keep telling them that a catholic taste in music is no great crime.
My point is that my two friends, passable in most company, were rooted to 1970s music of the kind you used to play as noisily as possible in bedsit-land. I argued that there was nothing wrong with my liking the odd bit of The Beautiful South, The Water Boys, and Simple Minds, along with some of what they had been glued to since the days of flares, first time around. Nor was I a snob for getting high on Handel, or tranquillised by Dvorak or Pachelbel, still relishing The Doors and Hendrix.
At one time I never thought I would get out of the rut of Pink Floyd and King Crimson and, to be perfectly honest, some of the stuff I once listened to in order to be cool would darken the sunniest of afternoons. Like Stephen McGregor I would be greatly tempted to block my S-bend with it or use the vinyl as part of the frame for a cloche.
Come August, my colleagues in masochism and I will still motor up and down broad Scotland to share in Queen of the South's bad luck, but they will have to bring their own music - complete with plug-in earphones.
Andy Murray,
2 Blacketlees, Annan. June 29.
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