Soul of the North

There is something that is well weird about the whole Northern Soul movement that has just been kinda blowing my mind lately. I mean a bunch of working-class white UK tough guys working in a coal mine all day in some depressing shit town, trekking 200 miles on a friday night to pop pills and dance till dawn in matching wifebeaters to a rare Judy Street track (that basically sounds like a sunshine show tune) doesn't really seem to be the most possible of outcomes. I mean, to use the vernacular of the locals, that is relatively poncy behavior. Surprisingly, if you look at the type of dancing that went down at some of these joints, its basically on par with the breakdancing that was going down in the Bronx in the early 70's, except by a bunch of cockney whiteboys in oversized trousers. The quality that I find so endearing about Northern Soul, is that it's a music culture that strove to highlight the creme de la creme of failed American R&B 45s, and ultimately ressurect the careers of a handful of soul singers; likely leading them to quit their jobs (the ones they pined to get back after previously quitting their jobs to do music the first time) to sail from the colonies over to mother England, enjoy about ten minutes of success from a bunch of people who speak the same language, but still, are basically unintelligible in interviews, and then ultimately go back home and remain as failures. A touching tale, I know.

Anyways, I don't really like blogs that post youtube vids, likely cuz my attention span is short, the internet is slow at work, the quality often sucks, and you can't download/steal the track and listen to it in other formats (which, I'll admit is very hypocritical of me to say). But I have to post this vid, for this specific post, cuz it's just too perfect. Record a song in 1973, make the video in 2007 (after attending your cousin's funeral). Makes perfect sense, and why not vary it up with 3 seperate locations all with in 30 feet of each other, and some striking shades. "Making Love on a Mountain...Drinking Love from a Fountain".