Thursday 10 August 2017

Freshers Stop Here!

Am back from my mini blog break! DID YOU MISS ME? ...no? Rude.

Anyway, am back and, to kickstart, I would love to welcome Lucy Ivison and Tom Ellen onto the Pewter Wolf. Lucy and Tom are co-authors of several books, such as Lobsters and Never Evers. And their latest has just come out!

Freshers follows Phoebe and Luke as they start uni. Phoebe can't wait! And with Luke, her secret crush there, it's going to be exciting. But Luke is still reeling over his break-up with his ex. When their worlds do crash together, they have to navigate new friends, parties, social media crisis. But with all this going on around them, will they find themselves and each other?

Now, as today is my stop on the tour, I wanted to do something a little different and talk music, mainly music that Lucy and Tom listened to while at uni themselves. Plus, to give it an extra twist, am adding a song choice of my own that reminds me of my college days (I was a bit of a wuss not going to uni! Let's not get into that can of worms.)

Before I show off their music choices, I want to thank Lucy and Tom for allowing us to snoop into their uni days and their music and Nina for asking if I wanted to be involved in the tour! Now, let's go back in time thorough the timey-wimey thing known as music!

 



LUCY:
I think it's weird how the songs you might have loved when you were at university, the ones you listened to all the time, are not necessarily the ones that end up transporting you back there. When i was at uni I was really into Nina Simone and Paul Simon and early Beatles tunes, all of which i still love. But they're not the songs that remind me of that time of my life, maybe because they are still songs I listen to regularly and love. I think it's the one hit wonder cheesy tunes that really pinpoint a moment in time. The ones that you never listened to before or after and when you hear them randomly all of a sudden you have gone back in time. With that in mind, I am going to go for:

Shakira - Whenever, Wherever
Famous for having a line about breasts being small and humble like mountains and played across a thousand student unions on loop circa 2002. 

The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup
A classic drunken end of the night bob along. Well, for me at uni anyway - don't know about anyone else. 
 
TOM:
Blink 182 - Going Away To College
Just before I went to uni, I was in a (very terrible) punk band, and we used to basically strive to be like Blink 182. This song really reminds me of Lucy going off to university while I went travelling: we were dating at the time, and we both really loved this song, and it seemed very poignant to us, as it's all about new beginnings and being terrified/excited by all the new things we were about to experience. The line "I haven't been this scared in a long time" really resonates with me, still...
 

The Streets - Blinded By The Lights
The album this song is from ('A Grand Don't Come For Free') came out while I was at uni, and I loved it. But for some reason I re-listened to it while we were writing 'Freshers' and realised it's basically the musical version of our male protagonist's narrative arc. The album - just like Luke's story - is all about lad culture, romantic confusion, not knowing whether you can trust your mates and just generally trying to figure out who the hell you are. It's the sound of an average young British bloke having a bit of an existentialist crisis - but it's also very catchy and fun to dance to. A great combination.

Andrew/The Pewter Wolf:
Siobhan Donaghy - Revolution In Me
Throughout the three years I was at college, this was my go-to album whenever I had to get work done. It came out within a month or so after I started my first year and I had this album on repeat. I think this song (among others on this and maybe one or two other albums) made me suddenly click about myself and who I wanted to be. 

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