The 1984 Project: Catch My Fall

I also want to thank Dr Easy for letting me take part in this blog. I think he invited me because he knows 1984 is vivid for me, too. It was a transition year, for a couple of reasons. I was 12 and everything was changing: the way I felt about boys (terror, apprehension, longing), the way I experienced music (full-bodily), the way I expressed myself (I discovered writing in 1984).

But also, there was a big life change: I moved from France (possibly just as Dr Easy arrived) to South Africa in 1984. Before we left, I remember carefully cutting a picture of Michael Jackson out of a magazine to show people what he looked like, just in case they'd never heard of him or, God forbid, had never heard of Thriller. (Look, I was 12. Also, I know "Thriller" was from 1982, but I was a little behind.)

But it turned out that the music people were listening to on the radio there was pretty much the same as in the place I'd left. I felt taken down a peg, but it was also a huge relief. Music gave some continuity, a bridge across the transition, when everything else seemed to be in upheaval. Lost friends, lost year at school because my age was all in between, lost summer (we moved to SA in the middle of winter from summer in Paris, which was a shock to the system), lost home (we lived out of a suitcase at a hotel for the longest time while my parents tried to find us somewhere to live).

Posted below, a couple of the songs that kept me going at that time.

Invisible - Alison Moyet