Somewhere between not finding fresh chillies and working out where the breakfast cereals have have migrated to during the refurbishment at the local supermarket, there was a gap in the musak. Well not so much a gap, as a break between the soft-focus FM radio pitch-corrected rubbish that seeped from the speakers in the fettuccine ceiling panels. As if the clouds of modern R&B fluff pollution had parted for a moment and let through a ray of truth and light. And into this break came one song that made me stop. And listen. It’s a song I used to know well, but haven’t listened to for a long time now. I had forgotten how good it was.

So I searched it out on You Tube, and was surprised by the clip that came with it. I found the top-hat, monocle and cape kind of weird; and the gesticulating even weirder. Gene Chandler looks uncomfortable in the get-up, and disconnected from his own movements. It’s a stage-show for a negro, for white guys and house-wives, designed by a committee of white guys in ties. But the song is still great 50 years after Chandler recorded it. How many of today’s radio hits will still be played in the fresh produce department half a century from now? Will there be fresh produce? What is the secret of Soylent Green?

© CCC