Listen: Hurry Up Harry / Sham 69
Hurry Up Harry / Sham 69
October ’78 was a great month. Corinne and I went to London for my birthday and Howard was typically the world’s best host. Never a dull moment would be an understatement. Another two weeks of trolling the record shops along Oxford Street, sifting through cheap punk clothes from a damp Shepherd’s Bush Market, eating traditional English breakfasts covered in Daddy’s sauce with endless cups of sugary tea several times daily in cafes, wolfing Battenburg cakes in between and drinking….warm pints. Sounds nasty but in fact, it was heaven on earth.
‘Hurry Up Harry’ had just been released. It was everywhere. On the radio all day, and in the pubs at night. The single became our vacation theme. A better working class drinking anthem comes along seldom, especially with all those personal memory attachments above.
When we landed at JFK, and eventually made it to the luggage carousel, I could see loads of records tumbling down the chute towards the conveyer belt. One of my checked boxes had come undone. No doubt, the panic was a most amusing moment for every last passenger except one. Seriously, I nearly blacked out.
It’s true. All’s well that ends well, as the entire twenty five eventually found their way to me, ‘Hurry Up Harry’ fully intact.
Tags: Howard Thompson, Polydor, Sham 69