Big Star “Thirteen”
This weeks Poetry JukeBox hit has been nominated by Chris “The Captain” Moir the drummer and backing vocalist of the legendary “Dikki Hart Orkestra”.
Big Star was an American rock band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1971 by Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens, and Andy Hummel. The group broke up in early 1975, and reorganised with a new line-up 18 years later following a reunion concert at the University of Missouri.
The band’s musical style drew on the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and The Byrds. Before they broke up, Big Star created a “seminal body of work that never stopped inspiring succeeding generations” in the words of Rolling Stone, as the “quintessential American power pop band” and “one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll”.
Chris says the song is about that moment when you are still innocent. The cusp between childhood and adulthood. He calls it a melancholy song. He adds “Teenage Fanclub’s album “Thirteen” is named after it”.
Pudding Head
My Father had decided
On for my thirteenth birthday
To treat me to a haircut
At Bartie Wilson’s Barbershop
On Westgate Road
Bartie only one style
Learnt when scalping recruits
in his far off Army days
The short back and sides
Or Basin Cut
A pudding basin was placed on my head
Everything that stuck out was cut off
By the sheep shears
That ran up my scalp like a lawn mower
My Elvis quiff hacked off
Until I looked like an escaped convict
On 27th November 1961
I walked through the door of
Of St James and St Basil’s Youth Club
A scalped, skinny and self conscious
Clueless teenager with spots and spectacles
I don’t recall the gift from my parents
For my thirteenth birthday
But I do remember the giggles of the girls
And the chorus of “slaphead” from the boys
On the Youth Club record player
Elvis Presley sang
“Are you lonesome tonight”
© Jeff Price September 2018
