John Pilgrim: Hate the adverts, love the music

That is the way that the old songs keep coming back to remind us (or at least me) just how good the music industry used to be.

My favourite ad at the moment is from Marks and Spencer and features a lady trying on several different items of clothing to the song Me and Mrs Jones which was a number one hit for Billy Paul way back in 1972, wonderful lyrics expertly put together in my view.

As I sat watching the advert the other evening I was reminded of several other great songs which brought back particular memories.

The soundtrack for the movie The Graduate came some ten years before Billy Paul made his top ten entry.

The only sad thing about the songs and the film was when I found out that those black stockinged legs which appeared in the advert for the movie did not belong to Anne Bancroft!

Hal David and Burt Bacharach came up with a song for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid which more than adequately explained that a man and a woman could be friends without being lovers, who can possibly forget that bicycle ride? BJ Thomas is said to have recorded Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head six times before the writers were happy with it.

Pride of place for me goes to Doris Day with whom I fell in love (along with the rest of the lads in my street).

When she appeared as Calamity Jane and sang Secret Love I get goose bumps even now just thinking about Doris dressed in a Deerskin outfit and astride her horse way back in 1954, I was just 12 years of age but I have always liked older women!

My only regret is that Doris failed to reply to the letter I wrote to her but she didn’t reply to the other lads either so I have managed to live with the disappointment.

On another subject I would like to know just how young you have to be before you can own a motorised cycle and tote a mobile phone.

I swear that the child I saw in the park the other day couldn’t have been much more than six years of age.

She was driving a battery powered pink scooter which looked very much like the Vespas of my youth and making a telephone call at the same time.

The only thing that can be said is that her parents were with her, they couldn’t keep up with her but that’s not the point is it?