Isn't (old) technology marvelous....

I've been off work sick all week.  Nothing too serious, you will be glad to hear, but any sympathy you want to send in my direction will be gratefully accepted!!  I find chocolate always works....

Anyway, while I have been at home, coughing, blowing my nose and lying on the couch feeling sorry for myself, I have been listening to the radio and reading a lot.  And I have just read a very interesting article by Dave Fanning about U2's album the Joshua Tree, which is 25 years old, today!  Released on 9th March 1987.  Wow!

Not content with what I read in the article, I went seeking more information and that led me straight to Wikipedia where I read some more...

How interesting!  Apparently the album has socially and politically conscious lyrics embellished with spiritual imagery.  No wonder it received critical acclaim!!  Seriously, I never really understand music critics descriptions of albums, they always seem to use words which I can't relate to the music at all, to me the music/lyrics are just good, really good, absolutely brilliant, or not great!  But I suppose if they just wrote that then their articles would be boring to read.

All this reading about how great the album is made me want to listen to it again.  I know I bought it when it came out first so I dragged my poor 'under the weather body' off the couch and went searching in the old 'vinyl record' boxes in the attic, and eventually found it.  A cassette version, covered in dust.  An original!!  How cool is that?  I opened the card inside the cassette box and four young, very serious faces stared back out at me.  That made me laugh (and cough!!)

But, my initial excitement was quickly diminished when I realized that I had nothing to play it on.  It's a long time since I had a stereo with a cassette deck on it.

On a mission now to hear it, I though I might download a new digitally remastered version from iTunes, when I suddenly remembered a conversation that I had with my brother a couple of weeks ago, about something he had given me in 1985, I think, after he returned from a fishing trip to Alaska!!

Back to the attic again and more searching through the boxes dust and cobwebs.  Which by the way, is not doing my poor infected chest any good.  Again, after a bit of searching (unlike U2) I found what I was looking for!!

Gosh, this takes me back.  I turned it around a couple of times in my hand and eventually figured out how to open it, and to my dismay I discovered that there are batteries still in it.  God knows how long they have been in there, that's so typical of me.  But again this time luck was on my side and they haven't leaked and ruined it...  One more search now, for batteries, and I'm ready.

I'm back on the couch.  But I'm not reading.  I'm listening to the original cassette version of the Joshua Tree......on an original Sony Walkman!!

And when I'm finished, I'm going to look for my video cassette version of Rattle and Hum to watch...