Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – The Music Column – 1991 – Always Look on the Bright Side of Life and Bohemian Rhapsody

Doesn’t time fly by when you are enjoying yourself? It only seems like yesterday that I wrote the first post in this series for the year 1962 when I was nine and in love with Nat King Cole and Richard Chamberlain. Twenty-nine years later I was still listening to Nat King Cole and re-watching Shogun and The Thorn Birds which had pride of place in my VHS collection.

At the end of 1990 after six months working as Advertising Sales Manager for the holiday brochure subsidiary of the newspaper I had moved over from, I decided that cold calling to hotels and seaside B&BS was not perhaps the direction I wanted my career to go in. It had been a great three years but my hours were long and so were David’s and something had to give.

I decided to work for myself and I began to offer my services to start ups in our local area that needed someone to look at their marketing and promotion. At the same time I signed up for Echoes L’Arome and for the next 15 months I held perfume parties locally and built up a network of about five agents who did likewise. We lived in South Woodford and my patch was the Walthamstow area and for a time things went well. I smelt nice that is for certain.

In essence it was a pyramid business with everyone getting their percentage and I got into it at the wrong end of the business. The market was actually pretty saturated in the London area and I ended up going further and further afield to build my network. On one occasion I was in a tower block in East London when I was confronted with a handful of gentlemen who felt the need to interfere in my business. Luckily I am endowed with a fluency in Anglo-Saxon and they were rather taken aback that this ‘posh bird’ could out do them in that department. Their obvious bemusement gave me time to slip off down the stairs to my car but my enthusiasm was waning and by Christmas after a few good parties I decided to go back to work. 1992 thankfully proved to be a much better year for me and more about that next week.

In the meantime, whilst I ended my tenure with L’Arome I was left with a sample box of perfumes that were actually great quality and I continued to sample for a number of years.

We did not have the time nor the cash to go far in 1991 but we had some good parties at the house and I listened to music in the car as I navigated my way around North London without the aid of a Satnav and with a trusty A-Z.

Time for the music of 1991 and there were several hits that year that have stood the test of time and included Bryan Adams – Everything I Do I Do It For You. Cher – The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss), Right Said Fred – I’m Too Sexy, Jason Donovan – Any Dream Will Do, Vic Reeves & The Wonder Stuff – Dizzy, Michael Jackson – Black or White, The Clash – Should I Stay Or Should I Go, George Michael and Elton John – Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me, Diana Ross – When You Tell Me That You Love Me, Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody, Beverley Craven – Promise Me (One of my party pieces). And the unforgettable Monty Python’s Flying Circus with the most played funeral song! Always Look On The Bright Side of Life! A we head into Thanksgiving for those of you in the United States and as we in the UK move into Brexit… perhaps we do need to look on the bright side of life!  But also to celebrate the release of the movie.. Bohemian Rhapsody as well.

Here is Always Look on the Bright Side of Life… and you can buy it HERE

And here is the link to buy the original soundtrack from the new movie – Bohemian Rhapsody HERE

Here is the original sung by Freddie Mercury.

Thank you for dropping in and if you have a favourite track that you would like me to play at the end of the post next week..please leave the song title and artist in the comments. thanks Sally