Mr Tambourine Man

I was working on some Christmas music and needed to go into town to buy a set of sleigh bells, so decided to fit in some Number One hunting at the same time. I had my eye on a couple of charity shops I hadn’t yet visited, but on the way I thought about the Merrion Market and decided to go there first.

The Merrion Market is a strange place, but if you ever find yourself in Leeds and needing, as most of us do at one time or another, to buy collectible stamps, military memorabilia and a fancy dress costume, this is the place to go. While you are there you might like to try to identify the lingering smell of the place, something I have never managed to do.

The market also houses a second hand record shop which, as far as I can tell, has no name, though if it does have one it may be simply CD & Vinyl Exchange. It was disappointingly short on singles, but I did find a box of 12”s. This box turned out to be highly significant. Although it held only two Number Ones, these were enough to ease me past two major landmarks – I now had half of the 1000 Number Ones, 300 of which were the original releases.

The records in question were Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney with Stevie Wonder and That’s What I Like by Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers. The young lady at the cash desk was obviously impressed by my choices and let it slip that she had once owned the Jive Bunny record herself, though she immediately denied this and blamed the crime on her mother, who was not present to defend herself.

I left the market and headed to Boar Lane and the Shelter shop, where I found another strange and unidentifiable smell, along with a healthy selection of CD singles. Band Aid 20’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? was the last version of the song I needed, and I found both discs of the double CD release Believe by Cher. The assistant was highly amused at my purchase of The Way To Your Love by Hear'Say, but I couldn’t summon the energy to explain my actions. I left her to it and wondered what she would have made of Jive Bunny.

The Oxfam shop had a useful stock of old 7”s and a bizarre pricing system. Rather than the usual blanket price, each record was individually labelled, apparently at random. Was Spitting Image’s The Chicken Song* really worth £1.49? It did have a picture sleeve, but could this explain the difference between its cost and that of Amazing Grace by the Pipes And Drums And The Military Band of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, which I laid my hands on for just 39p? Marmalade’s Ob-la-di Ob-la-da also came in at £1.49, without a picture sleeve. Perhaps this was due to its vintage, but then why did Diane by the Bachelors, five years older, set me back just 99p? I couldn’t make any sense of it, but bought the lot anyway.

The selection also included Woman In Love by Barbara Streisand, which I didn’t remember but knew immediately on playing it, and the 236th chart-topper, Scott McKenzie’s fantastic San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair). I also picked up one CD single, Billie’s Girlfriend, complete with a poster of the singer baring her terrifyingly large teeth.

I moved on to the RSPCA shop, which had been a happy hunting ground on a previous occasion. Once again I came away with a good number of chart-toppers, after negotiating another Gary Glitter moment, having found his third Number One, Always Yours. Fern Kinney’s Together We Are Beautiful is another record I didn’t realise I was familiar with. I recognised it at once, and very good it is too.

There had been some confusion in my mind over Ride On Time by Black Box, which I had found previously as a remix 7” which sounded suspiciously close to the version I knew. I had reasoned that it must have been the remix which had become a hit. But now I found another 7”, without the remix tag, so perhaps this was the correct version. So it seemed, until about 3 minutes into the record, when a few bars of guitar reared their head, which I swear were not there before. I remain confused, but surely one of the versions I now have must be the right one.

There is only one version, thankfully, of St Winifred School Choir’s No One Quite Like Grandma, and I now owned it, along with the 204th Number One, Tears by Ken Dodd. Russ Conway’s Roulette was naggingly familiar, though this may be because of its jaunty charm rather than a genuine memory. Either way, I was surprised to find myself enjoying it. The same was true of Welcome Home by Peters & Lee, one of those records that I have heard countless times but never paid any attention.

Time was marching on and I had yet to buy sleigh bells, so I called it a day and headed to the music shop Knock On Wood. As well as the sleigh bells I made a spontaneous decision to buy a tambourine**. Only now do I realise that this was probably subconsciously inspired by Scott McKenzie.

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* One of five birds to appear in the title of a Number One. I know you’re enjoying this zoological thread.
** This turned out to be a good move, as otherwise I would have been struggling for a relevant title.