13 November 1970
All day I’ve been crooning “I’m gonna leave ol’ Durham town” to myself ahead of writing this; clearly Roger Whittaker seeped into my ’80s small-child brain. His mix of folk balladry and schlager-pop was already successful in the ’60s but seemed to find its natural home with the ’70s advent of shiny-floor cabaret-style TV light entertainment shows, providing a gentle melodic interlude between the racist comedian and the arse-level shots of scantily-clad young female dancers. (Speaking of ’70s light entertainment pop stars and TV personalities: I checked. Nothing there. He’s clear. We’re good to go.)
Whistling: that was Roger’s thing too. ‘New World In The Morning’ kicks off with the trademark Whittaker whistle. So hugely popular was he in Germany, even releasing singles and albums in the language of Goethe and Scooter, that I wonder if Roger Whittaker was an influence on ‘Wind Of Change’ by the Scorpions. Such are the brainwaves that come to you when you’ve had ‘Durham Town’ in your head all day – and when the actual song you have to write about isn’t an nth as memorable. In later years he lived in Galway and Offaly; let me know in the comments or on the socials if you’re from either county and he had a similarly profound effect on you.
Anyway, ‘New World In The Morning’ is a tediously overwritten and overproduced bit of folk-mass fluff. Pretending that I care for a moment, I make out Roger’s gist here to be that all you people saying tomorrow will be good are losers, because some wise old duffer dropped the truth-turd on Roger that tomorrow never comes: today is where it’s at, baby! And believe me, my paraphrasing is catchier than the real thing. Was he touring Ireland at the time, or on The Late Late Show three weeks in a row, or on that year’s Leaving Cert? Whistling or not, I can’t fathom how anyone would walk all the way to a record shop to buy this sentimental, saccharine shlock. No wonder they drove you out of Durham town, Rodge.
