48 hours ago, some of the most torrential rain I can ever recall fell over much of Scotland in a very short space of time. What made this feel very unusual was that just a couple of hundred miles to the south, much of England was basking in unseasonably warm and sunny weather for what is supposed to be the autumnal month of October.
Many football matches were, unsurprisingly called off due to waterlogged pitches. My team, Raith Rovers, play on an artificial surface which meant the game was never in doubt, which meant I had to make the 70-mile journey from Glasgow to Kirkcaldy on a day when the authorities had issued a ‘don’t travel unless you have to warning’.
Oh, and I was going by train – I don’t drive…I never have although I keep threatening to take lessons. And as you can see from the above picture, quite a number of the train lines were under a lot of water, especially those close to rivers and canals.
What would normally be a two-hour journey at most involving two changes of trains, ended up taking more than four hours, but I’m incredibly grateful to the staff who worked so hard and tirelessly in such miserable conditions to ensure there was at least some service on the least-affected lines. The effort was worth it as I was treated to a decent game of football.
I couldn’t help but quietly sing a particular song to myself as I watched the weather worsen from the comfort and safety of the railway carriage.
mp3: Bryan Ferry – A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
I’d have barely been ten years old when I first heard this. It was, thinking back on it, probably my introduction to the crooning voice of Bryan Ferry. It’s a song that has so much going on throughout – wonky keyboards, crazy strings and soulful backing vocals are just the tip of the iceberg. I had no idea what the song’s bonkers lyrics were actually about, I just loved how infectiously catchy it all was and looking back, it was one of those songs that subconsciously created my love for music that was maybe just a bit out of the norm.
I can tell you when and where found out that it was a cover version. It would have been in 5th year at school and in our common room where we would idle away the time in between lessons. One of our esteemed and elite group (not many folk at my school stayed on beyond the earliest point you could leave) had discovered Bob Dylan and brought in a compilation tape that he insisted we listened to. It included this:-
mp3: Bob Dylan – A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
It was only then did I realise just how radical the cover version had been. To take a such a folksy ballad and turn it into something so unworldly was bordering on the point of genius. I still can’t get my head around that the original take was such a slow number with a low-key production.
Oh, and I also can’t get to grips with Dylan being just 21 years old when he wrote and recorded it. It’s a fantastic piece of poetry and prose, but surely that’s the voice of someone well into their advancing years?
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 