As a way of celebrating the first birthday of my debut album, The Grown Ups, I thought I would write a little "behind the scenes" feature about each of the songs on the LP. You can listen, download or buy the album over at www.mickterry.co.uk
TINSELTOWN
In the summer of 1977, one of the kids pictured on the front cover of The Grown Ups died. It was a horrible accident and it, obviously, devastated his family. His mother wore black everyday for more years than I can remember. At least, that’s how I remember her and probably says more about how a child deals with exposure to death, rather than the ravaging effect that time has upon one’s memory. We had all returned from our various summer holidays, only to discover the awful news of the passing of one of our classmates. It was also the year that we left primary school and, so, with the class splintering across various secondary schools in the area, we were somehow robbed of the collective grief process. Most of the parents of the working class families I grew up with had been through the war and, as such, public displays of emotion were not commonplace, if at all. As time passed, I would often see the front room of his house in almost total darkness, save for a small candle, and the shadowy figures moving about within filled me with a sadness that has never left me.
I never mustered the courage to speak to his mother after his death, her constant black veil, powerless to hide the grief that consumed her, was so terrifyingly final. As you grow older, you learn that the hardest words to say are always the most important. Deep down, I think that “Tinseltown” was written as an apology for that.
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