Cilla Black had a wonderful voice. Her death is another step in the ending of a very particular era. Her first hit songs were in 1964 - Anyone who had a heart, You're my world. The Independent has a good piece that consolidates a number of the the Youtube clips on Cilla. This is one example:
The following photo is, I suppose, something of a period piece. We are having dinner to celebrate my 21st. Compare Steph's hair with Cilla Black's in the clip. The photo is taken at the Alouette Restaurant in Sydney, now closed but then a reasonably posh place where the Sydney socialites sometimes gathered. And no, before you ask, I didn't classify myself as a Sydney socialite! But we did think that we were very sophisticated.
Because of other writing that I have been doing on social history, I have been trying to map some of the dates over the 1950s, 60s and 70s relevant to the major cultural trends of the period. So my response to Cilla's death was both professional and nostalgic.
I think that we are all affected by nostalgia linked to certain periods in our lives as evidenced by the multiple revivals of songs and groups, as well as the constant stream of retrospective documentaries. So the open ended question today is what makes you nostalgic, bringing back past periods in your life?
9 comments:
Songs and smells are the most evocative things. Songs from particular periods, or a smell like the perfume Mum wore when she went out...
Songs and smells are indeed very evocative.I remember Mum's perfume too! Food and visual can be as well. It seems to me that the most evocative things are attached to very particular periods or memories. It's the combination that gives power.
Sad about Cilla. Talking about hair styles, Bronwyn Bishop managed to maintain a fairly consistent hair style over the years, although her views about profligacy in spending public money seemed to change. See: http://sydney.edu.au/alumni/images/content/sam/march2013/bishop.jpg
See what you mean re hair style!
Anything can trigger off nostalgia. Take for instance Anna's latest blog post on her visit to Poland. It took me off on my visits to Chennai and a resolve to do somethings that I have not done the last few visits. And that ties in nicely with your observations on your posts on bucket lists about routine. The small routine things take up so much of my time, even when I am visiting another place, that I don't find the time to say stop and smell the flowers!
Hi Ramana. That was a nice post of Anna's. For those who haven't seen it, the link is http://acobserves.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/one-week-with-family-and-friends.html?view=classic Smell the flowers is nice. We spend so much time on routine that we stop doing the things that we like and certainly fail to do the things that we might like.
Ramana, your "stop and smell the flowers" is a very well known phrase in my family. To which my children always reply something like "yes I'd like to dad, but I'm really busy at the moment. There was a great song about just this... looks up youTube...:
"Cats In The Cradle": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUwjNBjqR-c
Jim is just entering this phase of his life - where his priorities will not match his daughters. And that is a good thing.
kvd
I hadn't heard that song for a long time, kvd. It came out in 1974. Things do change and the girls are pretty good, but (as you imply) they do have a life of their own.
Now, and to continue my bucket theme, that's why I need to reinvent myself.
Anonymous, that is a beautiful song. Thank you.
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