Devil Woman

Jul 16, 2012 by Kate Sutton

Remember as a child, particularly as a teenager, when you’d get a lift in your Mum and Dad’s car and they’d put the radio on and rather than think, wow, what great parents, being my personal chauffeuring service, you’d think instead, “Christ, my parents have fecking awful taste in music?”

Oh, and how you vowed you would NEVER never to turn into your parents because you were like, über cool ‘n that?

 

Well here’s the thing.  It will happen whether you like it or not.  Try as hard as you can to stop it happening but one day, you’ll find yourself flicking through the radio stations, hoping to catch Rihanna’s latest song, (OK, bad example,) but a nice bit of Ed Sheeran, or even a lovely snippet of some dirty Grime or that lovely chap that always sings about whistles, Flo-Rida … and then Simply Red comes on Radio 2.  And you stop flicking.

 

You pause.  It’s ‘Rollercoaster,’ the song you used to love a catrillion years ago when you were in your twenties.  And you start humming … then the chorus kicks in … and before you know it YOU REALISE YOU KNOW EVERY SINGLE WORD … and suddenly it’s the best song in the world and you say out loud, “They don’t make them like this anymore.”

And you hate yourself.

You put it down as a one-off.  An abhorrent, woeful lack of judgement in musical taste.  You tell yourself, “It was just the once.  It didn’t mean anything.  It’s not like I listen to Radio 2 all the time.  No-one will ever know.”  But the next day comes, and you flick through the channels again, and ‘Radio 2’ flashes up on the screen and your heart flutters.  “What will Steve Wright play today?  Please be Duran Duran, PLEASE be Duran Duran!” But it’s not.  Instead, it’s Cliff Richard.  You hate Cliff Richard.  Cliff Richard is 4,592 years old.  But the song starts and it’s Devil Woman and you quickly realise … you LOVE that song.  Not that you’d ever admit it.

 

And yet again, before you know it, you realise you know all the words and you’re happily singing along, windows down, elbow hanging out, wondering why on earth that poor Devil Woman had evil in her eyes.  As you slow down and approach the traffic lights, it’s only when you glance across at the car next to you and clock the look of contempt and utter disgust that you realise what you’ve become.

 

Your Mum.

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