I recently went to see Simple Minds in concert and while the lovely Jim Kerr was very entertaining and energetic he looked his age (as do I! I'm not one to talk!). But even so, my heart did a little flip and I was back to being a teenager again when he sang Don't You Forget About Me (no, Jim, I never would!!!)
That got me to thinking about my teen crushes...you know the ones; the posters on the bedroom wall, the bands you HAD to see, the records you HAD to buy and swooned over committing every word to memory, or TV programmes you just HAD to watch to get a glimpse of that one guy. More so...the daydreaming... if he just happened to walk into the shop I was in, or if we met on holiday, or.... always the dream was about him falling for me because I was the most (fill in the blank) girl on the planet he could love only me.
Ah, all that unfulfilled potential.....
My crushes started with the Bay City Rollers... God knows what I was thinking!! Look at those trousers!
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| copyright: wikicommons |
Progressed to Simple Minds, U2, Billy Bragg (who did walk into many a bar I was in and I never plucked up courage to talk to him)
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| Billy Bragg at Borders, London Oxford Street, December 2003.<br> from en.wikipedia: 21:41, 17 May 2004 . . Steinsky (Talk) . . 256x408 (88,658 bytes) (Billy Bragg at Borders, London Oxford Street, December 2003. |
Then, of course I met and married my grown-up crush and lived happily ever after. But, every now and then I do get a whiff of that excitement with little crushes on guys. Currently I'm in TV love with Jamie from Outlander.
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| Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/92237067@N03/14832062015/ |
Who was your first crush? Did you ever get to meet them? Did they live up to your expectations? What do you think now, having a second look?
The Osmonds. Oh my gosh. I still have some of the vinyl and the fan books. Great memories, Louisa but yes... that ageing thing...!!
ReplyDeleteOh my... Donny, Jimmy and Marie....I remember them so well (and their teeth!! We used to turn the TV brightness dial down so all we could see was their teeth!) What memories!!! Puppy Love, Paper Roses...
DeletePretty sure mine was Jonathan Taylor Thomas while watching Home Improvements with my sister and dad. Aaaah 90's sitcoms. I loved that show.
ReplyDeleteHad to Google him, but SO CUTE!!!!
DeleteHi Louisa,
ReplyDeleteGosh! Now we're showing our age! I had numerous crushes- the first was Sonny Hammond, the boy on Skippy. Then it was Donny Osmond and yes, David Partridge. I had a huge crush on Greg on the Brady Bunch.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
OMG Skippy!!!!! Oh yes!!! Of course Donny (who hasn't really changed a lot!!). SIGH!!
DeleteWham. George Michael and I were going to get married! I still remember my devestation finding out he was gay :( I think I was about 10ish or so.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Michael :-(((((((((((( Every girl's dream for a while (and a lot of boys!!!!)
DeleteOuch - Davy from the Monkeys! Then changed to Mickey, also from the Monkeys. Definitely says I'm getting long in the tooth. I had posters stuck to all four walls and the ceiling, no wonder my aunt hated having to sleep in my room when she visited.
ReplyDeleteSue, I still have my Monkee trading cards and a monkee ring from a cereal box!
DeleteDavy Jones was my favourite, definitely. So cute. I had posters everywhere too that I changed as regularly as my crushes changed and pulled bits of wallpaper off when I tore off the sellotape. Mum used to go nuts. But what can I say? I'm fickle, I fell in love a lot.
DeleteThe Monkees....I loved Mickey because he had curly hair like me! My best friend and I were 12 and we decided (in 1968 ) That we HAD to see them in Concert. Our parents refused to buy us tickets because they didn't want to have to go with! So we snuck off to the nearest store that sold tickets for concerts in Chicago, and bought one for each of us. We lived about 30 miles from Chicago and could take the train there easily, so we had this grand scheme worked out where we would have a slumber party at another girl's house, but really take the train to Chicago and go to the concert, and be back home before anyone missed us. Needless to say, our plans were thwarted by my freinds mom when she found the tickets and wrung a confession out of us. The major flaw in the scheme was we didn't even think how we'd get home late at night because the trains stopped running at 9pm,so we'd have been stranded in downtown Chicago, not a good idea for a couple of 12 year olds. We were grounded to our houses for a month and had phone privledges taken away. I finally saw the Monkees in 1985 at the Wisconsin State fair....nobody wanted to go, so I took my kid's babysitter with me. I saw them again in 2011 at a reunion show (without Michael) just a few months before Davy died. PS: I also saw the Bay City Rollers in 1975, and Donnny Osmond in 2010 in Las Vegas...he touched my hand (swoon!)
ReplyDeleteOMG Donny Osmond TOUCHED YOUR HAND!!!! JEALOUS!!!
DeleteI wish I'd seen the Bay City Rollers (back when they were young LOL!!)
I love your story about the Monkees- the optimism of youth, eh? All those well-laid out plans (!) and somehow the parents always seemed to find out, but in this case, thank goodness they did, because you'd have been in a pickle in Chicago in the middle of the night!!!! So glad you managed to see them eventually!
ABBA were my first big crush -- I thought Benny and Bjorn were the bees knees! Then came Bo Brady from The Days of Our Lives -- he was utterly swoonworthy. Oh, and the picture I had glued on the inside cover of my school folder? Pat Cash, complete with mullet and white towelling headband. Hmm...none of us are as perky as we once were. ;-)
ReplyDeleteOh, yes Pat Cash...I'd forgotten about him, lovely if you could see past the mullet!!!
DeleteI LOVED the Bay City Rollers. That takes me back.
ReplyDeleteMe too. Les was my favourite - I do not want to Google to see how they've aged, it'd make me depressed! LOL
DeleteOh yes, those band guys. Could just stare at them for hours. Sets me back when I read one of them is ill or has died. I'm not that old, am I? As for seeing them in person, a few years ago we donated an obscene amount of money to a PBS station for "meet & greet" with a band my husband and I had loved ever since we were married, and whose lead singer was one of my all-time crushes. Well, meet & greet turned out to be get in line, don't touch, don't take photos, and say hi. Crush man looked so tired and obviously didn't get his energy until after he started performing. Fortunately, two of the other members had their energy going already so it was still fun and I was like a groupie, but learned my lesson. Don't need to get quite that close.
ReplyDeleteAs for Jamie - sigh - my hubby doesn't get it, even when I explain to him that when I watch Jamie (the wedding scene, anyone?) in my mind I do NOT collect Medicare or have 5 darling great-grandchildren, thank you very much. I'm sure you get what I mean ;-).
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ReplyDeleteI'm glad you eventually got to meet your crush, Grandma Cootie, but sorry he wasn't how you'd imagined!!! Yeah...let's not get too close!!
DeleteAh, Jamie... he's just so....gorgeous *sigh*