CHEER UP!

Imagine a news flash over 50 years ago “Today the pound hit a new low against the dollar” followed by the tuneful

“Woke up this morning feeling fine
I've got something special on my mind” 

That’s actually what  happened in 1964 with that Herman’s Hermits hit, I’m into Something Good

Herman’s Hermits had loads of UK hits and 18 top 40 hits in the USA selling over 80 million records. Lead singer Peter Noone described their name as being a huge disadvantage – The Beatles, Stones, Animals or Who all had names allowing them a breadth of repertoire and were all hard-core, genre-changing bands. In contrast Herman’s Hermits sounded a just a bit silly and they only produced hits about young love but most of all were feel-good. 

Isn’t “feel-good” what we all desperately need now? Hence I suspect one of the problems the BBC has. Their interviewers are really good at being nasty and gloomy. 

 

On Times Radio recently an interviewer of a Labour Shadow Frontbencher failed to get a straight answer to any of her polite questions. Afterwards she lamented her performance saying she’d tried her best. Her crestfallen humility was in pleasant contrast to most of her peers.

It's hard for us to compare 1964 with today. In almost every respect today is better in terms of health, wealth, education, opportunities and our general infrastructure. We’re spoilt for choice with hundreds of TV channels  and free music and everything shows we have it better now than we did then. 

Back in the 1960s “mental health” was not a topic of general conversation but had it been I suspect casualties to it would have turned out to be just as great as they are today.

So where do we get our feel-good pick-me-ups today?

Fact: the commercial world for music has changed. Example: The Arctic Monkeys are going on tour soon – 59 gigs in 19 different countries in 4 ½ months. Ticket prices range from £140 to £300 and way beyond. They’ll be very tired and richer when they get home after Christmas.  Tunes will be the last thing on anyone’s minds. 

Near to top of current best sellers: Lizzo and “About Damn Time”? Terrific song and video but not the pink-scrubbed-clean sound of a Herman ditty. Kate Bush is currently the third best-selling song with “Running Up That Hill.” But it’s 37 years old.  And it doesn’t have a catchy tune. Back in the day of Herman they used to say if you heard a milkman whistling your latest single that you had a hit on your hands.  I haven’t heard anyone whistle anything recently. It went out of vogue about the same time as smoking. 

But don’t we all need a tuneful song to ease the pressures of an overheated world.  An upbeat tune to remove the black-dog grumpiness in the news?  We used to have Herman and the Hermits, the Hollies and Joe Brown. Now we have videos and musical extravaganza.

By the way, talking of tunes and feel-good I see Joni Mitchell was persuaded to sing at the Newport Rhode Island Jazz Festival  - it was very emotional stuff. And it struck me she once had a “woke up” song too:

“Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I knew
There was milk and toast and honey
And a bowl of oranges, too
And the sun poured in like butterscotch
And stuck to all my senses

Oh, won't you stay, we'll put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses”

Ah. I feel so much better already.

DO WE REALLY UNDERSTAND HOW TO DEVELOP?

I’ve had a recent stint of travelling through Europe and I’ve been reflecting on our frustrating country that I’ve lived in and loved for so long.

Do you remember the 1960s and a wave of “new music”, Herman’s Hermits for instance with “No Milk Today” or “Bus Stop” by the Hollies - prosaic, local love stories….no Empire building here.

Then we had the strike-ridden, high-inflation ‘70s.

The Thatcher axe wielding ‘80s followed when we relearnt the art of combat …. invading  New York and pillaging ad agencies, banks and businesses.

And then the ‘90s, noughties and the current decade when we became middle class, more meritocratic and technophiles. A world in which London started winning the race to become arts, sports and financial centre of the world.

What could go wrong?

Last week I was told what by the guy running Russia for a multinational:
“I love your country but from my perspective it’s fumbling along without any clear strategy….if it were a company it’d be ripe for takeover”.  (Probably Vladimir Putin feels the same.)

Listen to the British news in which pratfalls are celebrated more than success and cynicism rules and you’ll take the point my friend from Russia made. Unlike most of the EU, compared with whom we are doing brilliantly, we seem unable to promote our strengths. Creativity, innovation, arts, media and yes finance (over-cooked as that sector has been).

Psychologists have proved that human beings are more responsive to bad news. Good news seems so cheesy in comparison. That’s why for some Peter Mead’s book “When in Doubt be Nice” was an awkward read. Where was the tabasco wit, the flagrant irony?

Recently a very nice guy said “We must play the ball not the man” to which a very smart and funny German retorted “No. Play the man first - always. Then everyone knows where they stand”.

We need to sharpen up. We are living in a global economy and over the past six weeks at various conferences I’ve reflected on how lacking in confidence we seem despite having a growing economy; English is the language all business speaks and speaks well; we are becoming an increasingly desirable country to visit; our capital city bestrides the world - top of the cultural pops.

To thrive and grow we need to look forward, enjoy our economic status, we need to be confident, fast-footed and relaxed. We need to become traders  again not tubby diplomats.

I’ve loved travelling Europe and its neighbours hearing optimists regardless of their current “temporary little local blips”. My growth conversations with Russians, Egyptians, Turks, Poles and people from the Gulf, ….opportunity-hunters explaining in flawless English why their future looks so great, have felt unusually inspiring and refreshing.

Maybe we don’t want to succeed. Maybe being miserable fatalists is our natural role in life.

But I don’t think so.

We should travel much more, talk up our successes and feel good.

That’s all it takes, Tiger.