I haven’t been able to listen to Blackbird by The Beatles since 1997. It’s not a particularly traumatic story really and not one anyone has asked for but I have insomnia so listen up, kids.
I was 14 and sat in my friend’s garden when I last REALLY heard it. His dad was a musician and would allow us to go round most Fridays and have a few beers as long as no one got drunk. His mum would run us home before midnight. My mum wasn’t massively liberal in where I could go but my friend (lets call him Joe) and his family were nice and respectable and always got me home ok. They were really so lovely.
Joe’s older brother, (let’s call him Andrew), was two years older and hung out with the cool musician kids. At 14, that blew me away. Music and boys and unrequited love were my main hyperfixations in my teens. They kind of all rolled up into one uber hyperfixation, served with a side order of hormones, making up my entire godawful personality. My dream was to have some dreamy guitar guy strum out his undying love for me on an acoustic guitar. Now, at 40, I can’t think of anything more toe-curling than some muso singing love songs at me. I am now more of a “call me a dickhead and make me laugh” kinda gal. And if you tell me I’m beautiful, I will want to vomit and will tell you that you’re full of shit.
One summer night, we sat under the stars in Joe’s garden, sipping those little continental beers that people went to French hypermarkets on Booze Cruises to buy for about 30p a bottle. Even though the saving was pointless as the drive and the ferry cost at least £700. The 90s were wild.
Andrew’s friend Dan, the coolest musician in school, was jamming with Joe’s dad. I mean, all the year 11 boys were cool to me, a fat acned year 9 kid with a bad bob hair cut and crippling weirdness. But this was other level cool. This was when I was happiest. Music and beer, talking albums and laughing and being treated like a grown up by my friend’s cool parents. This was how I imagined uni would be (it wasn’t) and it was all I wanted.
In my head, there are fireflies around us on this night, the sky is star lit and a fire pit is going as we all cosy round Dan, with his shoulder length golden hair and acoustic guitar. However, I am fairly certain most of that is bollocks and it was probably an average cloudy night and we just sat out in the dark until his mum put the conservatory light on so we could see. No disrespect to Joe’s parents. But the movie version is always a bit more whimsical.
I’m not sure who else was there that night. My friends Natalie and Gareth. Possibly Natalie’s boyfriend Kevin but he may have disappeared by then. I can’t remember Kev being around much, apart from them being told off for holding hands under the desk by Mr Hughes in History and then them snogging loudly and sloppily a couple of times in Joe’s loft, where the boys had a ‘band practise space’ and wrote (naff) songs. They probably didn’t go out much longer than a month but who counts in year 9?
I always felt on the periphery. I wasn’t as into Marilyn Manson as Natalie and Gareth were. Gareth started self harming once he got into Manson, which at the time was cool but now is completely fucking alarming and I am not sure why no one got him help. Like I say, the 90s were wild. Joe was the centre of everything and kind of kept us all close. His house, his music. He introduced me to Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Natalie was always (and still is) cooler than me, so I just felt like they were more ‘them’ and I was just me.
Yet Andrew and I seemed to vibe. He was really sweet and quite shy. He was amazing at languages, played piano and liked Ben Folds 5. Somehow, if Andrew was about, we always ended up chatting. We just clicked. Sometimes we would go and sit in the front room away from the others and talk for hours. He told me I looked like Nina Pearson from The Cardigans (I didn’t) I think I kind of wanted him to like me. Well, I absolutely did want him to like me. I wanted ANY boy to like me. Apart from Joe because for some reason I totally discounted him and he totally discounted me. All boys discounted me so that wasn’t new but this time, it was cool.
On this one particular night, with Dan showing off his guitar skills, Andrew and I ended up sat together pretty much all night. As in the movies, the songs slowed as the night grew ever darker and Dan started to beautifully pluck Blackbird. His voice was delicate and his fingers nimble and my heart raced as Andrew and I started holding hands. Both of us were trembling. I pretended I was cold, which was probably half true, but I was mainly pumped with adrenaline. Everyone listened, silently and intently and Andrew and I huddled in closer, resting our heads in together. My breathing became erratic as Dan told us tunefully, poetically “All your life… You were only waiting for this moment to arise”
In all honesty, I don’t think I have experienced such intense emotion since. There is nothing like that hormone surge when the first boy who has ever shown interest in you, who you kinda like, might well be about to kiss you. I was too scared to make a first move. I didn’t *actually* know how to kiss. I had had a weird kiss thing with Danny Barbakis in year 6 and he had told everyone I was shit. Which was probably justified but had left me extremely worried that I would royally fuck this kiss up. Also, there was still a chance that Andrew could reject me at any time.
When Dan had finished his sweet, sweet rendition, Andrew and I sloped off to the front room, away from everyone. I’m not sure how Joe or his parents felt about this. Knowing that their 16 year old was in the living room copping off with a 14 year old. Or not copping off as the case was. But no one interrupted. I am sure we were both virgins ( I absolutely was) and given that we barely had the courage to kiss, we weren’t very likely to be boning on the couch with half a dozen people in the garden.
We sat there shivering into each other, playing with each others hands, holding each other tightly. I think there may have been sweet nothings whispered. We might have touched each other’s faces tenderly. I might have made that up. Either way it was intense and I cannot recall a time in my life when I have been so very nervous and so about to explode with emotion. Not lust. Emotion. It was a completely chemical reaction. My pituitary gland pinging the hormones everywhere. That dopamine kicking in. It was the sweetest, most chaste longing and fear. The stuff poetry is made of. The stuff that doesn’t actually exist in real life.
We still didn’t kiss as I left but we made arrangements to meet the next day to walk on the beach. When I woke, I felt different. The romance of Blackbird dancing through the night air was gone and suddenly I wasn’t sure.
We took a wobbly walk down the front and the atmosphere felt different. Had we kissed in the rapture of Dan’s serenading, finally giving into exploding, yearning hearts, it might have been a sweet, melting kiss, filled with Regency style romance. But the tension was too much and now we were sober and both seemed a little too nervous. A bit too awkward. We finally locked faced in an unskilled grinding of mouths. I don’t think either of us found it pleasant. Neither of us knew what we were doing. If I knew then that relaxing into each other and letting chemistry carry you along is the way to go, I would probably have tried not to be so rigid. I firmly believe that there isn’t really such thing as a bad kisser. Just bad chemistry. If you read each other right, lean into each other, not too gung ho, it’s always lovely. (I say this like I can remember what kissing someone is like) But the awkwardness of two teens, with what I think is fair to say was shakey self esteem, felt painfully uncomfortable. It just didn’t feel right.
I went home and cried my eyes out. I think Andrew sensed when I left that the atmosphere wasn’t brilliant and even seemed a little sad. I felt bad that I had been carried away with the music and the night air. I felt bad that I didn’t think I really liked Andrew like that after all. I felt embarrassed that the kiss had been so messy. I felt disappointed that I wasn’t going to be in love after all and no one would ever like me again because I am awful. Blah blah blah teen angst – you get it.
Text wasn’t a thing then so I couldn’t just be like “soz *bye emoji*” So instead I wrote what was probably a 15 page letter apologising for being so shit and not being able to speak to him and how I was an awful person and I didn’t want to not be friends but I am just mental. It wasn’t about Andrew at all. It was about me. In all honesty, this behaviour continued for a me for a good 15 year afterwards. So there was no real life lesson learnt at that time.
I handed it to Dan in the playground to pass to Andrew and he agreed to. I actively avoided Andrew until he eventually PHONED MY HOUSE PHONE because it was the 90s and you had no choice. Poor guy. It was the most grown up ‘break up’ I have had really. He was so lovely. I will never forget him saying to me “you make out like you did something terrible and you didn’t. You can’t help it if you don’t feel it. It’s ok” I don’t think he knew at the time how special that was to say and I don’t think I did either. I wish all break ups and unrequited loves were so perfectly put to bed.
The wheels fell off of our little group after that. I stopped going round to Joe’s. As we went into year 10, Natalie and I hung round with the girls more again. The atmosphere between us and the boys went a bit weird. Andrew got three millions A*s in his GCSEs and went into Sixth Form and met a girl called Carmel and they looked really right together. I don’t think they lasted too long but I was happy for them.
I couldn’t listen to Blackbird after that. It made me cringe as I remembered the intensity of it all, the embarrassment of bad kisses and the wretched sadness of a friendship group dispersing. I would block it out and skip the track.
Until the other night. I am in the throes of insomnia right now and have been listening to Spotify to get to sleep. As I was dozing, Blackbird flew out of my phone with piercing, quiet elegance. For the first time in over 20 years, I just let the music in. It is such a gorgeous melody. It feels precious and delicate and now as I listen to it with the ears of a cynical 40 year old, I am warmed by it.
Despite the cringing, the memory attached to is utterly delicious. It is pure and warming and now feels so precious. All the innocence and fear of first touch. After a few (ahem) more romantic encounters, I realise how deeply, viscerally good Andrew was. I don’t think I have ever been involved with many who have shown such emotional maturity (including me) since then. It saddens me that things changed between us all, largely as a result of my dalliance with Andrew but there are such delightful memories. Of pain and of joy and of touch.
Blackbird is now bittersweet for me. It captures a feeling I will never feel again and lets me cradle the nostalgia of it all. Blackbird is back on my playlist and happily one of the best songs in the soundtrack of my life.
The Jeminist 