Birthday Number 1s: 1988 - Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You

Initially, seeing that this song

Nothing's Gonna Change My Love for You - Glenn Medeiros

 was Number 1 on my 10th birthday, I let out a groan of disappointment. 

There is perhaps no hit song of my childhood I'm less connected to. But that fact, in itself, triggered a few thoughts.

First, let's start with the nice stuff. Does anyone ever ask "Whatever happened to Glenn Medeiros?"? If they do, the answer is rather beautiful. He's a headmaster. He has a degree and doctorate in education and is principal of a high school in his home city, Honolulu.

I happened across these edifying details while channel-hopping recently, and it made me feel a little guilty about dismissing Medeiros as one of the great pop lightweights. What did I know? Indeed, and truly, nothing.

In my head, I had always had a thought "Glenn Medeiros was rubbish, Nothing's Gonna Change My Love for You was a rubbish song", but I realised, when I remembered the context, that that was, purely, a second-hand opinion.

As I mentioned last time, I often lost track of the charts over the summer, because of the holidays, and this happened in a big way in the summer of 1988. It was a holiday-heavy holiday. There was a school trip walking in the Peak District, then two family weeks in Cumbria, then two family weeks at a gite in Brittany.

The trip to Cumbria I remember best for almost drowning in a natural pool near Caldbeck in the Lake District. I slipped down a small waterfall, panicked (i was able to swim, albeit poorly) and needed to be rescued by a bystander. I still remember thinking "why is that guy not rescuing me? Oh good, he is". But, anyway, it was quite unpleasant. I guess I experienced shock and was sick, and then started hearing voices. Hearing a choir I couldn't switch off, singing the East German national anthem. And the weird thing is, three summers later, after being underwater and travelling on a motorboat on a loch in Scotland, on a school adventure holiday, I started hearing the same voices again, singing the same East German national anthem. Of course, East Germany had ceased to exist in the meantime.

Why the East German national anthem? Well, you used to hear it a lot at World Athletics Championships. It was a good tune, i guess.

Anywaaaay ... Glenn Medeiros... later in that Cumbria trip, my aunt and cousin came down from Edinburgh for a couple of days, and I remember being in my aunt's car with Madeleine, my cousin, and my sister Laura, listening to the radio, I remember we all enjoyed Circle in the Sand by Belinda Carlisle, but when Glenn Medeiros came on, after learning he'd been Number 1 for a couple of weeks, I remember either Madeleine or Laura (both of whom can speak with some authority on the subject) saying "he's not a very good singer" ... and that was it. I never gave poor Glenn a chance. 

In the UK, this was his one big hit, but he also had a US Number 1 in 1990 called She Ain't Worth It.

I think I thought Nothing's Gonna Change... was attached to some film, something like Cocktail, but it appears its ascent in the US was due to appearing on various US soap operas. It was co-written by the great Gerry Goffin and originally written for a George Benson album a few years ago.

It really is surprising how many hit songs (What's Love Got to Do With It being a good example) were just hanging around for a few years, waiting for the lucky version that would make take them to the top.

Talking of the East German national anthem. probably the defining moment of the summer of 88 (for me and others) was Ben Johnson's positive test, the end of sporting innocence. Everything changed.