The stuff of nightmares

During the last year, escaping from the soul-crushing awfulness of our viral, flammable world of orange toddlers and straw men, I retreated into my childhood and switched off 6 Music in favour of Absolute 80s. They play too much Deacon Blue and Journey* and Aerosmith, but they also play Echo Beach and Ghost Town and It Must Be Love.

They also play songs from 1985 that remind me of a very specific moment in my childhood: having nightmares about capital punishment. More specifically, nightmares about the death of Ruth Ellis.

 

Ruth Ellis

In 1985 I was 7 or 8, and I read a newspaper story of Ellis' hanging. I was so upset as a consequence that I couldn't sleep. I had nightmares for days, maybe weeks. I thought capital punishment was just awful. More than 35 years later, I still do: state-sanctioned execution is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

The songs that remind me most vividly of this truth are:

 

A New England (Kirsty MacColl)


 

Road to Nowhere (Talking Heads)

along with

I Want To Know What Love Is (Foreigner)

I Know Him So Well (Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson)

Dancing In The Dark (Bruce Springsteen)

Nightshift (The Commodores)

Love and Pride (King)

I don't have anything profound to say about any of them specifically. The first two are songs I genuinely love, but all of them hit me emotionally. A New England is top of the list as it's the one I most immediately associate with the nightmare feeling. It is also one of my favourite songs, by one of my favourite artists, and for the last 20 years has been doubly sad.

It was only recently that I worked out when in 1985 my nightmares must have happened: all except Road To Nowhere were in the UK singles chart in mid-late February. I was unclear why the music of mid-February 1985 specifically triggered my nightmare memory. Then I learnt that Mike Newell's biopic of Ruth Ellis, Dance With A Stranger, was released in UK cinemas on March 1st 1985. It would have been plugged in the papers in mid-late February. There would inevitably have been articles explaining who Ruth Ellis was, and what happened to her. That has to be the origin.

Miranda Richardson and Rupert Everett in Dance With A Stranger
 

I'm not clear, however, why I have such a strong association with Road To Nowhere. It wasn't a UK single till the autumn of 1985, and - having looked at the charts - there are no other songs of October/November that I think of in the same way. My best guess is that, as my mum, dad and uncle were Talking Heads fans, and Little Creatures was released in the summer of 1985, and July 13th 1985 marked the 30th anniversary of Ruth Ellis' killing, it was being played when further articles were published. A song of my nightmare recurring, perhaps.

I don't know, though. I shall have to ask my dear mother if she remembers anything.

I should probably also watch Dance With A Stranger, but right now I'm not sure it's wise. 2021 isn't exactly short of nightmares; resurrecting some old ones to add to the mix could be a step too far. I think I'll just stick with the retro radio.



*Don't Stop Fuckin' Believin' wasn't even a UK Top 40 single in the 1980s. It was a millennial hit thanks to Glee and shouldn't be played at all except on Absolute Noughties, if it exists, and which I don't have to listen to.


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